Behind the Scenes
by ShutUpAndPull
Summary: Because I read a prompt about Kate Beckett being an actress, cast in a new role as a detective, who, for character research, is paired up w/ NYPD partners Rick Castle & Jordan Shaw to observe and learn the ropes. And, of course, there's a spark between Kate & Rick, but he's currently seeing his on-again, off-again Kyra Blaine, which makes things a bit more complicated.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _In all honesty, I have several chapters already written, but I don't yet know where this one is going or where it'll end up, so I hope you'll bear with me. I suppose all I can say is that my aim is to be light and fun and flirty and, perhaps, a bit naughty, hence the choice of rating, just to be safe._

* * *

On that Monday morning, Detective Richard Castle, NYPD shield number 4774, suddenly found himself in a shitload of trouble, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

There she stood, in his captain's office across the bullpen of the 12th Precinct, the most captivating assemblage of flesh and blood he'd ever laid his eyes on, the leggy brunette superstar whose smile could outshine the noonday sun, and their lives were about to intersect in a very real way, one he'd never imagined or could ever have prepared for.

Both he and his partner in Homicide-Jordan Shaw, one of the most exalted detectives the department had ever turned out-had been informed of an actress's forthcoming stint with the unit, but the news that that actress was to be one Kate Beckett had felt like a bomb dropped into his life. The reality that such a woman would be so close yet simultaneously so far out of his reach was positively torturous, and that foreseen torment had only been compounded by the fact that the moment she'd stepped out of the 4th floor elevator, he'd learned there really was such a thing as love at first sight, and it was only Day One.

" _Castle_ ," hissed a voice with some manner of underlining, and once he managed to pry his attention away from the distraction beyond the wall of windows, he found Jordan looking less than amused. "What the hell's the matter with you? I called you three times. One more and you would've found my stapler on top of that disgusting thing you call a breakfast."

"With your aim, I don't think so," he replied, swiftly gathering his wits. "And breakfast envy isn't a pretty color on you. At least mine is fun, and doesn't taste like the cardboard I have to watch you shovel in every morning."

She wheeled back in her chair and got up, empty coffee mug in hand. "Yeah, well, I'd like to be around for my next birthday, and if you want to pull out our most recent qualifiers and compare hits, that crap-pile of sugar isn't the only thing you'll be eating," she asserted against his slight of her marksmanship. "If this shadow shit's starting again this morning, I need more caffeine. Try to finish that thing before I get back so I don't have to look at it, anymore."

 _You can't have my doughnut_ he hummed like a child as she walked off, and with a wise plan of attack, at that. Four weeks lay ahead of him. Four weeks of questions and explanations and demonstrations, of making sure this goddess of cinema was prepared enough to fool millions of TV viewers into believing she knew the first thing about being a cop in New York City, and all he'd have to show for it was a headache the size of Madison Square Garden and a meaningless pat on the back from a captain who'd, no doubt, have spent those weeks laughing under his breath about the whole thing.

But an assignment like that was one of the things that came from having a diamond for a partner. There was a constant spotlight, someone forever on watch-so Rick had learned over the past two years-and that meant, for the big heads down at 1PP, successes to try and milk at every opportunity. High profile always meant the potential for high return-for someone.

They'd been tasked with that Hollywood-classroom bullshit before. The first round a doltish actor who'd spent most of his time with them shamelessly hitting on a married Jordan and kicking Rick in the nuts, and neither wanted to ever have to go through it again. Cut to the current unfortunate collision between a star detective on the heels of a major takedown and a press-drunk directorate. How much more publicity could they wring out of the Jordan Shaw sponge? Cue Kate Beckett.

"Bambi's still in there? Maybe we can get someone up from maintenance to lock his door from the outside," Jordan joked upon her return from the break room, though, from the tone of her voice, only those who really knew her would've ever known it to be humor. "They must be trying to punish you for something, Castle, saddling us with this garbage again. What did you do this time?"

As deliberately as he could for optimum effect, Rick popped the last oozing bite of the Boston cream into his mouth, leaving a remnant on his lip that, for counterplay purposes, went without a tip-off from her.

"Sure, Shaw, because it couldn't possibly have anything to do with you and that glistening crown of a record of yours, right? 1PP wears it like a goddamned halo and you know it, and there I am, standing right there next to you for all of it, and they barely even notice me."

She sipped from her mug and pulled back into her desk. "I think we both know who the envious one in this partnership is. Time to put your big-boy badge on, Cas-"

"Hey, you two, can I see you in here, please?" Captain Montgomery hollered from across the room.

"Here we go. Should we take bets? How long before this one cries?" Jordan asked with a smirk, and Rick would've laughed if he wasn't so busy trying not to cry himself.

 **xxxx**

"Kate Beckett, meet my finest, Jordan Shaw, and her partner, Rick Castle." Rick shot daggers Montgomery's way as the women greeted one another, the perspiration from his palm covertly transferred to the fabric of his pants in anticipation of his turn. "It's called a joke, Castle, relax. You used to have a sense of humor."

Kate took a step towards Rick and his body stiffened, though he did manage to extend a hand despite the herculean effort it required. "And when something's funny, I still do, sir," he replied with more satisfaction than was warranted. "Rick. Welcome to the Comedy Hut. Shows daily."

"Happy to have a ticket," she said, playing along. Her eyes drifted to his mouth, and she watched the pronounced roll of his Adam's apple when he swallowed hard. "You have something on your lip, Detective Chuckles."

Jordan grinned as Rick, sufficiently mortified, frantically attempted to wipe whatever it was away.

"All right, that's enough. I've got things to do. Sit down, all of you."

Kate sat between Rick and Jordan, and it took everything in him to keep his attention elsewhere. Now he'd looked into her eyes, and he couldn't pretend otherwise, because they'd pierced his heart like arrows to a bullseye and left him struggling for air.

"I think Castle and I know the drill here, Captain," Jordan said with an enthusiasm feeble at best.

"Well, Shaw, how about you sit there and listen, anyway, and one day, when you're on this side of the desk, you can decide who knows what when."

The hint of a chuckle escaped Rick, but transitioned to more of an awkward cough with the glare that came his way.

"Yes, sir."

"Ms. Beckett has just a four-week window into this division. Do not waste her time. Treat her as you would any other member of your team, but please do not forget that she is a civilian, and she will be under your watch. She and I will be meeting weekly to make sure she's getting what she needs, so if there's any BS, I will hear about it."

It was Kate who broke the ensuing silence. "Ms. Beckett also doesn't want to be in anyone's way, and she understands she's going to be a disruption to your routine, so feel free to tell her if she's annoying the shit out of you."

A warning siren began blaring in Rick's head as her charm hit him full blast. _Kyra! Kyra! Kyra!_

They were on-again at present, whatever that even meant, he and Kyra, the switch that controlled their relationship having been flipped so many times it practically necessitated an electrician on standby, and though he doubted someone like Kate Beckett would ever give a man like him the time of day, his conscience's tap on the shoulder about his current roller coaster of romance felt cruel, nonetheless.

"I've had a lot of practice with Castle, so I'll have no problem with that," Jordan assured her.

Kate turned to Rick and her lips curled at the corner.

"That's funny," he said. "I've never heard you say that. It must be too noisy what with all the paparazzi flashbulbs popping all the time."

"E-N-V-Y."

"You two are worse than my kids, I swear," Montgomery huffed. "Get out of my office and find something to do besides annoy me." He crooked a finger at Kate and she leaned in over his desk. "They're both pains in the ass, especially him. You have my permission to give it right back."

"Yes, sir," she said amused and then followed the other two out.

Rick and Jordan returned to their respective desks-one faced the other-and Kate stood off to the side, surveyed the bullpen. It was markedly similar to what she'd always seen on TV and in movies, almost to the point of cliché, right down to the doughnut bag on his desk, and that feeling of almost being on a set lent itself to a sense of comfort she certainly appreciated.

"Have a seat," Jordan told her, and Kate chose the empty chair beside her desk rather than Rick's, to his dismay. "So, why are you here, Kate Beckett? I don't really have time to follow the celebrity scene."

"You are a celebrity," Rick mumbled as he shifted paper around his desk for no other reason than to appear as though it served some meaningful purpose, which it didn't.

"You'll have to excuse my partner. With that mug of his, he doesn't get the chance to meet a lot of women. Someone as beautiful as you sets him back a couple of decades to his adolescence."

Kate rotated in the chair, hooked her arm around the back. "I kind of like his mug, actually, even if he stuffs it with doughnuts."

And she'd definitely noticed his mug, among his other fine physical attributes, and felt an immediate attraction. There existed a common misconception that the life of a celebrity was filled with friends and parties and noise, but that couldn't have been further from Kate's reality. She'd learned the hard way that finding the right people to trust, letting people in, was a difficult road for someone in her position, and her inner circle was held small as a result. But there was something about the soul in Rick's eyes that spoke to her right away, that made her want to look closer, to have him around her.

"Okay, I see how this month is going to be. You've already picked a side, fine, Superstar, but you'll come to your senses, and when you do, it might just be too late to join Team Castle."

"I'll consider myself warned," Kate said sassily and turned her body straight. "To answer your question, I'm here because I'll be playing an NYPD detective in my first TV project, and I always like to be as prepared as I can be for any role I take. I figure if the audience is willing to give me the benefit of their time, they deserve that much."

 _Danger_. There was the voice in Rick's head again. Beautiful and magnanimous? Christ, he wasn't made of stone.

"Shit," he snarled when one of the papers sliced across his fingertip, and both women snapped their heads. "Paper cut."

"Aren't you glad you and the city are in this guy's hands?" Jordan said to Kate.

"You two aren't married, are you?" Kate teased, the question meant as a joke in reaction to their continual picking at one another, yes, but also as something of a personal mission to find out more about Rick, who already seemed to be of more interest to her than he should, considering she'd only known him for about two seconds.

Jordan nearly choked on her mouthful of coffee. "God, no, that sounds like some horror movie we might see you in. Speaking of frightening things, how is that gallery groupie of yours, Castle? Still following you around like a puppy dog this week or have you finally grown some balls and jumped off that ride?"

Kate slid a glance his way, quietly anxious for the answer; meanwhile, Rick wanted to hurl something sharp at his partner. There was no damn reason she had to bring Kyra into it. A simple "No" would've sufficed.

Yes, Kyra, Kyra whom he'd met while on the job in his old assignment as part of the Major Case Squad, back when art theft was his specialty-the only time his degree in art history had ever come of any use-and to say their relationship road had been rocky would've been akin to saying the Pacific Ocean was big.

The problem-or the biggest, at least-was that one of the few things they really had in common was they could both distinguish between a Monet and a Manet. After a while, that truth began to wear on Rick. For Kyra not so much, it seemed, either by choice or an utter lack of awareness, and he wasn't sure which of the two was worse.

But the days he lived were fucking hard, and more often than not, that was an understatement. Since moving up to Homicide and into a position he both wanted and fought for, he'd seen things no one ever should, but Kyra always managed to make him laugh, despite the darkness, and that ability was a magnetic elixir, one he hadn't been able to simply cast aside. Also, and Kyra would second it, the sex was incredible.

"I'm sure our guest has more interesting things to hear about than that. Are we going to start what she came here for or not?"

Kate wanted to, but she didn't push. Not then, not there.

Jordan eyed him knowingly. "Well, Kate, I hope you find paperwork interesting, because until the next body drops, that's what we're stuck here doing."

"If it's part of the job, I'm in. Let's do it. I just need to use the restroom, first." Jordan pointed out where it was and Kate moved to go, but she stopped and leaned in for Rick's ear on the way past. "I think I'd like to hear more about you and this groupie of yours," she said before walking off.

"Keep it in your pants, Castle," Jordan scoffed, noting the enamored look Kate's proximity had inspired, and he turned an even brighter shade of pink.


	2. Chapter 2

Rick strolled beside Kate down the hallway toward the gym facility at the 12th, her requested tour of the precinct on her first day there nearly complete, and her abundant enthusiasm had him both absorbed and utterly charmed.

He hadn't known what to expect, what the Audrey Hepburn-esque actress might be like off the screen and away from the lights of Tinseltown, but after just a couple of hours spent in her presence, he'd already envisioned the pain of having to relinquish her back to Hollywood, and that pain was biting.

When they arrived, he pulled open the door to the weight room and allowed her first passage, his eyelids fluttering with intoxication as she stepped by him and left a puff of vanilla on the air. "This is where we, um…where we-"

"I know I'm new to the whole police thing, but I'm going to guess this is where you lift weights?" she offered in his aid around a stifled giggle, and despite his previous difficulty in formulating a coherent sentence, he managed a surprisingly admirable recovery.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't tell me you'd bought a ticket to the know-it-all tour. You must be bored to tears, stuck here in this beginners' group."

Kate, who'd already made her way deeper into the room, glanced back over her shoulder. "You're pretty funny, Rick Castle. No wonder you have groupies."

The door closed behind him when he finally let it go and they were alone. "You should give one of the meetings a try, actually. They're every Wednesday night. If nothing else, I hear there's free punch, and it's often spiked."

"Does that help?"

"It can't hurt." He set off after her, more for the gift that was her scent than anything. "I didn't realize you'd be this tall," he said, absent forethought as to how ridiculous the observation would sound aloud.

Kate stopped at one of the machines and sat, reached up and grabbed the pull-down bar above her. "A tall know-it-all, huh? I'm blushing from all these compliments, Castle." She'd let his first name go like they were already buddies, like they were already some sort of a _they,_ and that sparked all manner of thrills in him. "I guess it's my turn, now. I didn't realize you'd be this nervous."

She was a beautiful woman. That was a fact, as much a fact as any subjective notion could be, and though her career had grown from her physical good fortune, her ego had not. In her mind, she was still the same tomboy she'd been since she was a young girl, mud in her hair and scrapes on her knees, and when men seemed to react to her otherwise, it always amused her, because she knew precisely how simple a gal she really was.

Rick tried to act casual in the face of her observation, but in doing so, succeeded instead in appearing all the more rattled. "You think I'm nervous? Why would I be nervous? How am I being nervous? That's…I don't even know where that comes from." It was a spectacular ramble, award-worthy, one that could only serve to cement her measurement.

Kate released the bar with a clang and got up off the machine, took a step in his direction, which he matched by drawing equally backward. "Okay," she said with a smile in her eyes. "I stand corrected-tall and corrected."

"I mean, you really need to get your nerves radar or whatever checked, because I'm the least nervous person you'll ever meet. Ever." _Christ, get it together_ snarled his inner voice. He'd stopped helping himself about eighteen sentences ago, but he couldn't stop. "So, yeah, anyway, we keep the weights here in this room on these mats. What else do you want to see?"

Then it became quiet, all of a sudden-not a no-talking-in-the-library quiet, but a calm-before-the-storm quiet.

"Take me to bed," Kate said into the hush with such frankness Rick nearly fell over.

That was, or so he thought she said.

His palms felt dewy like morning grass, yet again, his throat as dry as cotton. Nervous was only the tip of the iceberg of what he was. "You want me to take you…?" His words stopped, but the numbness in his limbs had only just begun.

She quickly scanned the room in confusion and came back to him. "I asked if the gym was coed. You know, do both men and women use it?"

In the moment of mortification that followed, he longed for a vat of that fictitious spiked punch.

"Sorry, I was, um, yes, the gym is coed. You can feel free to use it while you're with me. Here with me. With _us_." He paused to compose himself. "Let's try this one more time. You can use it whenever you like."

Kate threw a punch at the speed bag that hung from the wall. "Thanks. There isn't a gym where I'm staying. Maybe we can use it together, sometime. Looks like you've been in here before." His well-muscled arms were one of the many things she'd noticed and appreciated about him right away.

Even if he hadn't been anywhere near the damn place before, his answer would've been the same, because what kind of an idiot would ever turn down that kind of invitation from that kind of woman?

"All the time, yeah. I'm in here so much, in fact, they should name it after me."

"I guess I'll just have to bring my A-game, then," she replied with a challenge-accepted arch in one brow.

"Don't you already do that? You said upstairs you always try to be as prepared as you can be. The operative word being 'try' in this case, obviously," Rick responded, though with little warrant for such an assured attitude. He'd barely set foot in there in months.

"Okay, Detective Chuckles, I have plans the next few nights, but how about you put your money where your mouth is and show me what's what on Friday, after the cop shop closes. Whoever craps out first buys the other a beer. That is, if your groupie won't mind."

And she drank beer. Of course she did. Next he'd find out she loved football and old sports cars and classic films, too, because he wasn't suffering enough already as it was.

" _Kyra_ and I are both grown-ups, thanks. We can have beer with whomever we like, so Friday's as good a day as any for you to buy me one."

"You know, with your talent for fiction, you should write books or somethin', Rick Castle."

They both turned and looked when the door opened and someone walked in, he dressed far more appropriately for the room than either of them.

"Miller," Rick said, and the new third wheel offered like acknowledgment.

"Whoa, and who might this be? If she's your sister, can I get her number? I promise I'll be a perfect gentleman." The man's tone and his shamelessly wandering eyes suggested otherwise. "Hey, I'm Terry. Why are you hanging around this guy when you could be hanging around with a real man like me?"

Rick wasn't sure which laughable item on the list of laughable items to tackle first, but it didn't matter, because Kate jumped right in.

"Jerry, was it?" Rick puffed out a snicker at her purposeful gaffe. "You know, as tempted as I am to let my _brother_ here share my number with you, the fact is, I just don't date men who wear black socks to the gym. Sorry," she said with a shrug, and then she did something none of them expected.

She grabbed Rick by his shirt and planted a firm kiss on his lips. "Come on, brother of mine, the rest of the tour awaits. Enjoy your workout, Jer." She looked at Rick, who could now barely see straight, and tipped her head toward the door.

"Miller," he said again, only with a crack in his voice that time, and he shuffled more than walked behind Kate back out into the hallway.

"I'm sorry, Rick. I don't know why I did that. He just…I mean, was he for real? I've read some bad scripts, but I don't think I've ever read dialogue that ridiculous. Shit, wait, he isn't, like, one of your bosses or something, is he?"

It was a kiss of but two seconds, yet he wondered if the sublime tingle he felt in his lips would ever go away.

"As much my boss as Bruce Springsteen is," Rick quipped. "No, he works down in Records. And, don't worry about it. I'm fine. It was fine. Not that it was just fine. It was more than fine, actually, and I'm pretty sure I just broke the record for the number of times a person can say _fine_ in a six second span."

"Maybe Jerry's word prowess is rubbing off on you," Kate teased. "I'm still sorry, though. I just met you, and we're going to be working together-sort of, anyway-and you have a…I'm sorry, I can't remember her name."

To be honest, Rick forgot her name for a second, too.

"Kyra," he filled in finally, and though he thought it, he didn't voice the "but." The fact was, despite the charge he'd gotten out of it, he knew why she'd done it, and Miller had earned the slack-jawed look she'd left frozen on his face for being such a class-A prick. "Really, Kate, it's not a big deal. You're an actress. You improvised. I'll just consider it a training lesson in-kind, and the next time ol' Jer comes sniffing around, maybe I'll use the Beckett Method on him."

They smiled at one another, amused, and something more.

"So, was that supposed to be the grand finale of my tour, that room with the faint odor of sweat and the Romeo from Records?"

"Awww, yeah, Superstar, better to get your whining done before we go back upstairs to Shaw. I think she hates that more than she hates doughnuts. If you're not careful, she might make you ride in the backseat of the cruiser." Kate squinted at him. "What?"

"I'm just curious. Does she cut the crusts off your peanut butter sandwiches, too?"

Rick pivoted and started to walk away. "Just for that, I might give Miller your number."

She didn't do things like this, not with new people, and certainly not with unavailable men, but his eyes had her entirely off-balance. "To give it, you'd have to have it," she called after him. "Do you want it?"

He stopped so fast, the rubber on the bottom of his shoes set off a piercing squeak. If ever there was an easy question without an easy answer.

"Come on, I'll show you the firing range," he said, leaving it without a response, and he could barely hear himself talk with all the screaming the voice in his head was doing.

 **xxxx**

That night was an early night, for a change, the entirety of the day having passed without a body drop, and Rick was barely two feet inside his Lower East Side sublet when his phone rang. He let an expletive fly with its beep, hoped it wasn't Jordan, hoped he wouldn't have to forgo the pad thai he'd picked up on the way home and head to a crime scene, but it wasn't her. It was Kyra.

"I figured you'd be out schmoozing your newest potential golden boy," he said as he flipped a light switch with his elbow and illuminated the place. "How was your flight?"

She'd taken off for Philly that morning to visit a gallery and to meet a new artist who'd been recommended to her for a potential collaboration. She traveled a couple of times a month, at least, either on behalf of the Manhattan gallery's owner or in tandem with him, in an effort to woo up-and-coming talent or to visit their existing exhibitors and clients.

"It was fine, quick, and I'm heading out to the restaurant in a couple of minutes. He had an afternoon meeting with another gallery and was running late, so."

"Competition?" He pulled three small, aluminum tins from the takeout bag and plucked a fork from the drawer.

"I'm not worried," Kyra assured him, sounding as certain about that as she always did about everything. He envied that about her. "Before I forget, Victor needs me here until Thursday instead of Wednesday. He thought he'd be able to get out of Miami before that, but he can't. I may just fly back on Friday morning, in case things run late."

Friday. Friday was the gym and the beer and Kate.

"Whatever you have to do." He plopped down on the couch in front of the television and pried the top off the egg rolls. "I'll be where I always am."

It might've sounded dismissive to an outside ear, but Rick was just used to it by now, her coming and going, her being around and then not, and he'd suspected for some time it was one of the reasons they managed to work as a couple-that was, when they were a couple.

"I have to run, but I'll call you when I can. My schedule for the next two days is a nightmare."

"I guess good luck then, even though you never seem to need it," he said and then bit the end off of a roll.

"Thanks, I'll talk to you," she replied over the chime of what he assumed was the elevator, and the line went silent.

Rick set his phone on the cushion beside him and went to work on the noodles. She hadn't once asked anything about his day, about his new endeavor-Kate, assigned though she was-but that was just one more thing he'd grown accustomed to. Anyway, the Mets game was on TV, and that night it wasn't Kyra he needed the welcome distraction from.

 **xxxx**

Kate spent Tuesday away from the precinct, working with another team from the upcoming show-her arrangement with the NYPD firm only in terms of out date, not in terms of daily schedule-because besides her in-unit observation with Rick and Jordan, she also had prep work to do with the stunt coordinator, with the costumer, not to mention pre-existing press commitments for a film she'd completed that was soon due to hit theaters.

Early Wednesday morning, she emerged from her bedroom wrapped only in a towel, her wet hair pulled up tight in a bun, and she hurried into the kitchen to pour herself some coffee before she had to head in for her second day at the 12th.

"You're not going to wear that, are you? Page Six will have a field day."

Grady had been one of Kate's closest friends since her modeling days, and despite the network having offered to put her up in a hotel, she'd chosen to accept his invitation to stay with him, a successful model in his own right, one with a Tribeca apartment that surely reflected that.

"Yes, G, I'm wearing a towel to the police station, today," she said, her response dripping with as much sarcasm as the Breville was coffee.

He snapped his tongue at her, slid the day's _New York Times_ up in front of his face. "Touchy, touchy. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the insanely comfortable bed I've provided for her, this morning." Kate filled her thermos and crossed the room for him, kissed the crown of his head. "That's more like it. Have time for a croissant? I went over to the bakery."

"No, thanks, I can't. I really should go. I wanted to be on my way by now, actually."

"Miss Perpetually Ten Minutes Late wanted to be early? Bucking for teacher's pet, are we? Either that or the award for Most Fragrant Fake Detective. It smells like a Yankee Candle store just walked past me."

Kate turned and came back. "You're one to talk. My eyes were watering on Saturday night from the cologne counter you were wearing." She reached across him and swiped a bite of his pastry. "Holy shit, that's good."

"Only the best for my K. Take one with you, please. You're like a twig. My mother would have a fit if she saw you. And I'll have you know my man likes the way I smell, merci beaucoup." He nudged her on the hip. "Hey, never know. Maybe you'll snag yourself a man-cop down there that gets hot for the smell of vanilla cupcakes on a woman." He began to fan himself dramatically with the pages of the newspaper. "My, my, the thought of a man in uniform does get me going."

She flicked his earlobe and headed off again. _Not all cops wear uniforms_ she thought, and she tugged her lip between her teeth.


	3. Chapter 3

Kate arrived at the precinct just before 8AM to find Jordan seated at her desk, already seemingly immersed in the day's business, but her partner's unoccupied and Rick nowhere in sight. She tucked her sunglasses into her bag-they the one attempt at a disguise she'd employed in an effort to travel from the apartment without recognition, and rather successfully so-and dropped into the chair beside her, quietly anxious for his eventual appearance, and more so than she should be.

"So, back for another day of excitement, I see," Jordan said in place of any customary morning pleasantries. She wasn't much for that sort of thing, really, chitchat, trivialities and the like. Not that she was a cold woman, by any means, but when she stepped into that building every day, by necessity she became another Jordan Shaw, one with the focus of a laser, one whose chosen role demanded nothing less of her, and she was fiercely dedicated.

"Nothing lights me up quite like the great paper push of bureaucracy. How could I possibly resist? Looks like you're still at it. No new case, yet?"

Jordan shifted her attention from the open file on her desk to her computer monitor and began to type. "We caught one, last night. If my partner was ever on time, we could actually do something about it." Kate wanted to laugh or offer some witty retort, but she truly was Miss Perpetually Ten Minutes Late, as Grady had so colorfully referred to her that morning, so it felt in bad form, somehow. "You made quite a first impression on him, by the way, but I assume that's true of most men."

Jordan still hadn't met her eye, and though Kate had certainly noticed, it struck her more impressive than impolite.

"I wouldn't say that." And that really was the truth as she saw it, accurate or not. "Can I ask how the two of you became partners? I mean, if you're not…I don't want to bother you if you're-"

"I can do two things at once." Oh, Kate liked her. "Castle came up from another division. Most cops want Homicide, and I guess he impressed the right people. Montgomery wanted to put him with Jefferies, but I wanted him with me, so here we are, happy as clams."

To have listened to the two of them interact, even for the short time she had, made Jordan's reveal all the more curious, and it also enlightened her some as to the influence she must carry in her position, if she'd been able to sway her captain as she had.

Kate felt a blush even as her follow-up question formed, because it was one she'd already asked of herself. "Why did you want him?"

"I like hungry people, Kate. Hungry people want the same thing I want, to eat. When it comes down to it, that's all I'm here for, and despite Castle's let's call them habits, aside from me, he's the hungriest fucking cop I've ever met."

"And he's happy to share," Rick said, jumping into the conversation unannounced, coffee in one hand, a bag of his usual fare in the other. "A hungry Shaw is a grumpy Shaw. Good morning, by the way."

"Is it still morning?" Jordan poked with a deliberate glance at her watch.

"You know how certain jokes just never get old? That isn't one of them." He set his things on this desk and sat. "Guess I already know how that one is, this morning. How might you be, Superstar? We missed you, yesterday."

He opted for the collective, for obvious reasons, but he was sure he was only speaking of himself.

"Besides kind of bored waiting for you, I'm good, thanks," Kate teased, well employing Montgomery's encouragement of reciprocal grief. "Dunkin' again, huh? A cop with doughnuts all the time is pretty cliché, don't you think?"

"You mean like a model wanting to be an actress? _Boom!_ " he chortled, drawing the attention of all within earshot. "Anyway," he continued in far more muted fashion once the odd looks subsided and everyone returned to their business, "did Grumpus Maximus tell you we have us a case?"

Jordan finally stopped clicking away on her keyboard. "Which we'd already be out working if you could figure out how to read a clock. You know, Castle, your phone puts the numbers right next to each other now, for those who need extra help."

Kate often thought of herself as the Queen of Sarcasm, and had been labeled by others as such, but she didn't hold a candle to Jordan.

"Yes, she told me there was a case, but am I going to have to separate you two, or can we all play together nicely?"

Montgomery stepped up behind Rick on his way from the break room back to his office. "Sounds like your shadow has pretty well caught on to the two of you, already," he said. "How about you focus on teaching her something about being a detective, and get the damn case solved while you're at it." The partners acknowledged him in unison, and he and Kate shared a moment. "Someone update me, later."

Jordan opened her desk drawer and pulled out the car keys. "I'll be downstairs. If I don't see you in five minutes, you can take a cab," she said and walked away without Rick or Kate.

"If your character is supposed to be like her, I'd be worried about your Q rating," he warned before he popped a doughnut hole into his mouth.

Kate grabbed her thermos from the outside pouch of her bag and twisted off the top. "I think your partner's pretty amazing." She swallowed a few sips of coffee, returned it to its place, and stood up. "Are you going to teach me something about being a detective, or what?"

"I'm your man." _You wish_ , taunted his inner voice. "Let's go catch a killer."

He thought both women were pretty amazing.

 **xxxx**

"So, how many cases have you successfully closed? Do you keep track?" Kate asked from her seat beside Jordan in the cruiser.

Rick had been banished to the back, and not without a stink, one he'd put up merely for the opportunity of enjoying some further banter time with the actress of his affection. They'd already found themselves with quite a nice rhythm going in that department, considering they'd only just met.

"It isn't about keeping track or how many. I don't care about that."

Kate understood. She truly did. She didn't enjoy the exorbitant scrutiny her career brought her, either. She just wanted to be able to do what it was she'd come to love.

"Cops who close _all_ their cases don't have to keep track," Rick chimed in from his perch just to the left of center, which he'd inched into when he'd discovered he could see Kate best in the rearview mirror that way.

"Lucky for you then, I guess, partner," Kate replied with a quick flash of her eyes, because she could see him now, too. "Has it really been all of them?" Jordan didn't say anything, but the answer was still obvious. "Maybe I should move to New York. Knowing you're around, I'd probably sleep more soundly than I do in L.A."

Rick perked right up at the suggestion.

"Most murders are cut-and-dried, and that's because most murderers aren't very bright. Start with the simplest theory and work your way out. Out usually doesn't end up being a very long trip. Makes things easier for Castle," Jordan said in jest, finally letting go some with a gentle curl of her lips.

He made some kind of sound in the back, a clear objection to the kick. "Yeah, you're welcome, by the way. And you should move to New York, anyway, live in a real city." He locked eyes with Kate in the mirror, and they both held.

"L.A. isn't a real city?"

"Not if you need a car to get everywhere and there's no Dunkin' Donuts it isn't."

"Well, you've never seen my L.A."

Jordan stepped hard on the brake and steered into a loading zone a half a block from their victim's apartment building, tipping Rick's body into the door. "You better watch it," she told Kate. "He has a knack for hearing what he wants to hear. Bet he thought that was an invitation." With that she stepped from the car and shut the door behind her.

Kate looked over her shoulder and he was giving Jordan the side-eye. Maybe it had been. Fuck if she could explain what the hell she was thinking.

 **xxxx**

Upstairs, the three reached the door to apartment 11-G, an officer in his blues there in guard of the scene where techs had spent much of the evening documenting, measuring, and bagging and tagging, and Jordan greeted him with but a nod. Everyone knew Jordan Shaw, regardless of whom she knew, and everyone knew why: because she was the best.

She dipped into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of protective gloves for herself and another for Kate, not because she had any intention of allowing her to touch anything inside, but because there couldn't exist even the slightest chance of compromise, not at one of her scenes, not on one of her cases.

"Put these on. Walk where I walk. Hands inside the ride at all times, got it?"

When Rick, sliding on his own gloves, answered with an enthusiastic affirmative in stereo with Kate's, he earned a sneer that had the posted uniform on the verge of a chuckle.

"I can't help it. You know how excited I get," he offered in his defense. And he always did, because the hunt thrilled him-the hunt for that one piece of the puzzle, that one clue to help bring some good to the bad. His mind, he'd discovered, had been crafted for that hunt, and working beside Jordan had only served to elevate his skill even further.

"He does a thing," Jordan mentioned before they went inside, almost like an alert, and a curious Kate watched Rick pop a piece of gum into his mouth as she waited to hear more. "You'll know it when he does it. Just let him."

She said nothing more, he said nothing at all, and Kate was left with a wild anticipation to go right along with her first-crime-scene jitters.

Not for the victim, of course, but lucky for Kate, it'd been a strangulation-and a pretty straightforward one in terms of determining cause of death, apparently, according to the medical examiner's report-so what she walked into wasn't anything gruesome, at least not physically speaking. There was a palpable heaviness that came with the knowledge that a person had taken their final breath there, though, and that was a burden Kate wondered how her guides had learned to carry around with them all the time.

"Tell me what you see," Jordan said as she fanned a stack of papers on a small table beside the kitchen, her back to Kate, who was busy following Rick around the room with her eyes and waiting for something to happen. "Hello?"

"Wh…Me?"

"Yes, you. He already knows."

When Kate looked back, he was crouched in the middle of the room, scanning it intently, and he was quiet-too quiet for the Rick she was already growing used to. Whatever it was he always did, whatever his thing was, that had to be it, and tearing herself away from the sight of him required no small amount of effort on her part.

"Okay, um, I see a woman's apartment. I mean, there aren't any obvious masculine touches, so I'm guessing she lived alone or maybe with a female roommate, because there are a few photographs on the wall behind you of two women. And I see a mess over here, papers and stuff, and the coffee table is pushed out of place, but the kitchen looks clean, so maybe there was a fight or a struggle or something?"

"What else? What do you smell?"

Kate closed her eyes without even thinking about it, but they popped back open when Rick snapped a bubble with his gum, Jordan standing there entirely unfazed.

"Sweet something or like fruit, I think." She turned to her left when Jordan threw a glance in that direction, and there were three colored candles that'd been burned to almost nothing.

At that moment, Rick walked between them and into the nearby bedroom without a word, and Kate wanted to ask but held back, not because she wasn't terribly anxious to know why he did what he did, but because she really wanted to hear it straight from him.

"Everything has the potential to mean something at a crime scene. Remember that. Take the time to notice." Jordan stepped up to the bedroom doorway, but didn't go in. "The kitchen was a nice notice-the clean thing."

Kate enjoyed the moment of pride, because she imagined compliments from her didn't come often. "Do you take notes when you walk your scenes? I see a lot of cops do that in movies and on TV."

"I did in the beginning, when I was still learning to trust myself, but I found out the hard way that I never wanted to miss something important because my head was buried in a notepad, so I never did it again. Looking is the easiest path to seeing."

Kate was looking at her, and she was seeing every bit why Jordan was the success she was. Confidence oozed from her words, and the command in her presence was striking. She barely knew the woman, but she'd never been around anyone like her, and she knew if she could manage to pull off just half of that confidence onscreen, it would be a triumph.

"I think that's some pretty good wisdom for life in general."

"He said that to me on our first day together," Jordan responded, watching whatever Rick was up to in the bedroom before coming back around to Kate. "He deserves all the shit I give him and then some, but he has a lot to say that's worth listening to. It really pisses me off."

"If you two are done gossiping about me out here," Rick jumped in, "you can have the room. I'm done. I need some more gum. I'm out. I'll be back." He tossed his gloves at Jordan, and they bounced off her chest to the floor when she made no effort to catch them. "I'll never get why you don't think that's fun." He bent down and retrieved them, and not for the first time, obviously.

"Get out of here, Castle."

Jordan moved into the bedroom, but Kate stood there and watched him go. _Who are you?_ she thought, feeling desperate to know, and that pissed _her_ off, because he'd already gotten so far under her skin, she was becoming something she didn't have time for, distracted.


	4. Chapter 4

It was all Rick could think about, all he had thought about since Monday, really, but with Friday's arrival, his and Kate's prearranged plan for the evening had him lit up inside like a fireworks finale on the Fourth of July. For the second time that week, she'd spent a day away from the precinct, and though curious as to her absences, he hadn't yet asked her why, because as Jordan had reminded him-and with great pleasure, naturally-Kate, her time, and what she chose to do with it were absolutely none of his business.

His partner had gone downstairs to personally collect their afternoon interviewee-a tactic she liked to employ to make what she was about to put them through seem more genial than it would, in fact, actually be-and he was at his desk, with one eye on their victim's lab reports and one eye on Kate, whom he could see perched in a chair in front of his captain's desk. The two were in the midst of their first check-in chat about how things were going thus far, and the best he found he could hope for was that they were laughing at something other than him.

"He's up. Ellison's putting him in I-Two," Jordan informed him upon her return, but she could tell from his blank stare he hadn't registered a word. "Aww, I'm sure your little plaything will be out soon, Castle. She's been in there ten minutes. Snap out of it, for Christ's sake."

"You know, you'd be a lot happier person if you ingested some sugar, once in a while," Rick shot back, her snappish tone like a bucket of water to the face. "And Simpson has him in One, I got it." With the daggers she threw him, he promptly put her out of her misery. "It was a joke, Shaw, just a joke." When he saw Kate stand up, he did the same. "She wanted to watch the interview. Go. I'll bring her over."

"Yeah, I bet you will," Jordan mumbled and walked off, right past Kate as she came out of Montgomery's office.

"Is it time?" Kate asked him like an excited child on Christmas morning.

"They just brought him in. I decided to let Shaw handle this one," Rick said, like he was doing Jordan some sort of favor, like she wasn't in the room for 99.9% of their interviews, and the lead on most of them, at that. "You and I can watch together from beyond the glass, so if you have any questions, I can try to answer them for you."

The resulting flutter in Kate's belly was owed both to the idea of being alone with him and to what she imagined would be the delight of witnessing a no-nonsense Jordan Shaw in a room with someone she suspected knew something about her murder case. She hadn't yet met that incarnation, but she'd been hoping for the opportunity.

"Try to answer them for me? That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in a gal."

"Have I let a gal down, yet?" he asked, and Kate offered no reply, because he certainly had not. "Thank you for not saying anything. It felt a refreshing change from you-know-who. Come on, just for that, I'll let you flip the audio switch when we get in there. Big treat!" he said with big eyes.

Rick ushered her into the observation room opposite Interrogation-Two and pushed the door shut. It was lit dimly in comparison to its counterpart, and quiet, despite the fact that they could see Jordan talking to Sam Boyer, a man who lived just a couple of doors down from their murder victim on the 11th floor, and Kate immediately stepped up to the glass.

"This is very cool. I've always wondered what this would be like. If I screamed, could they hear me?"

"I can tell you I'd definitely hear you, and that would pretty much suck for me, so maybe wait until you're in here with Shaw to try it?" She smiled, and he angled his chin towards the audio box on the wall. "Flip it, and then feel free to thank me for the surge of overwhelming power you feel."

She did the former, but not the latter, as she was instantly transfixed by the scene before her in its wholeness. Even the way Jordan was using her voice was different than she'd heard before. "Do you ever get to play 'bad cop?'" Rick moved in beside her, but she never took her eyes off the show. "It looks fun."

"Prefer naughty to nice, do we?" he asked, thinking things he shouldn't. "Making a note."

Kate threw a hand up in his direction. " _Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!_ " She'd caught his question, though, and experienced a titillating side effect.

"Wow, it's almost like having two Shaws, after all," he replied almost in whisper, when his phone suddenly began to buzz. He retrieved it from his pocket, found Kyra's name staring back at him, Kyra who was to be back in the city from Philadelphia later that night. "I'll be right back. I have to…" With no acknowledgment, let alone a response, he ducked out into the hallway.

"Hey, can I call you back? I'm right in the middle of-"

"I have thirty seconds. I just wanted to let you know I was able to get on the 7:30PM flight out. I should be in by 10PM. Do you want to meet me at my place or should I come to yours?"

No, he hadn't told her.

"Actually, I have something I have to do, tonight." He left it at that, assumed she wouldn't ask-with time to or otherwise-and rightly so. "I can make breakfast tomorrow, though. Ten?"

"Okay, I have a massage at 11AM, and then I have to meet Victor at the gallery. I'll text you when I land."

She blew him an audible kiss and was gone. _Okay then, guess it's just muffins for breakfast_ , he thought and went back inside.

"You missed all the best parts," Kate told him, her level of excitement only on the increase.

"Yeah, what else is new?" Rick tucked his phone away, leaned his body against the back wall and watched her as she watched. "So, what do you think?" he asked after a few silent moments, during which his mind should've been focused on Sam Boyer, but was, instead, focused on the gentle curve of Kate's neck where it spilled into her shoulder.

"I think he's hiding something. It's in his voice. If I could see his eyes, I'd know for sure."

"What is that, like some magical talent of yours?"

She turned, flicked him an eyebrow for the conspicuous skepticism. "It's not magic. It's called listening, and I'm an actor. That's what I do. I can hear incredible things in a person's eyes."

Rick felt the sweat of panic hit him square in the face. He knew what his mind-and other parts of him-was saying, and that was dangerous enough. Now he had to worry every time they looked at each other that his eyes might give him away?

"Well, that's-"

When she took a step towards him, he tried subtly to back up, but he was already firm against the wall.

"Do you want me to listen to yours? Prove it to you?"

He jumped all over the suggestion with vehement resistance. "No, no, thank you, I believe you. You seem like an honest enough person, and my eyes are tired from all the…with the…no, thank you." She was still a good four feet away, and that's how he was behaving. Now he could only imagine what that night might bring.

Kate pivoted on her toes and retreated to the window, where she found Jordan was no longer, and with the single knock at the door, Rick understood they were being summoned.

"That's our cue," he said, feeling clever for all but two seconds. They both reached for the doorknob, and their hands nearly collided. "Allow me, please. It's the least I can do for that horrible pun I just subjected us both to."

"I'm glad you said it. It saved me the trouble."

"Funny."

"So, are we still on for later? The gym?" she asked. "I packed my A-game this morning, and it was damn heavy carrying it all the way over here."

"Absolutely, and lucky for you, your trip home will be a lot lighter-something for you to look forward to after you fork over all that dough buying me beer."

He pulled the door open and followed her out. When they made it back across the bullpen, Jordan was already on the phone, but clearly on hold for someone. "I want to get a request in for a search warrant for his apartment and his car. He pays for a space in a lot. And we need to cross-reference our vic's cell phone records with his. Pick one and handle it."

"Kate and I will take the phones," Rick said. "Two sets of eyes."

Eyes. There was the panic sweat, again.

 **xxxx**

After finishing the day with blurry eyes, they each went off to their respective locker rooms to change, the Friday evening off-hour affording them a private workout space, yet again. Rick finished readying before Kate, and he went in ahead, opened up the player on his phone and kicked up the volume on some Zeppelin, before hitting the mat to try and stretch some of the cobwebs from his recently neglected muscles.

He was on his back like a turtle flipped on its shell when she came in, his knees hugged into his chest, and he was deep into "The Wanton Song" and an inarguably poor Robert Plant imitation when her voice startled him silly.

"I think you should stick to your day job, Chuckles," Kate teased, resurrecting her moniker from the beginning of the week. "I hope you aren't planning on buying me that beer, later, at a karaoke bar."

Rick, now on all fours, exhaled long and slow, to try and steady the patter of his heart. "You scared the shit out of me." He pushed to his feet, taking in every inch of her he could get away with as he came up.

"I could say the same thing about you. I thought I might find an animal in pain in here."

"Oh, that's very nice, thank you," he sneered, massaging his lower back and fighting with all his might not to smile at her smile, which was rapidly draining whatever energy he'd managed to lug in there.

She looked the way chocolate tasted, the way waves rolling onto the beach sounded, the way cashmere felt to the touch, even in the least glamorous of moments, as that one was. He'd never experienced the kind of battle inside as he did when she was near, the kind of struggle to breathe, to resist the urge to reach out for her, and the more hours they spent together the bloodier that battle became.

"So, what's first? Do you have a regular routine, or?"

Rick almost sputtered out a laugh, but thanks to the grip his teeth had on the inside of his cheeks, it stayed put. "Well, you probably need to warm up first, so I can-"

"Nope, I'm good. Grady and I do yoga together before bed every night. Cardio to start?"

Okay, he hated Grady immediately, whoever the hell Grady was.

"Cardio. Yeah." It was just two words, but it felt like it took him a week to get them out, because he was choking on all the Grady and the yoga and the bed. But, of course she had someone. Of course she wasn't sitting at home at night writing Kate Castle with little hearts all around it in her diary. _Look at her, you idiot._ The damn voice. _And remember Kyra?_ "Shut up. I know," he snarled, and Kate, who'd climbed onto the treadmill a few steps away, crinkled her face.

"Know what?"

Shit, he had said it out loud.

"Nothing, sorry. I'm just gonna…" Rick slinked over to the elliptical machine and got on. "I should've asked before. Is the music okay? I can change it or just turn it off, if you want."

"No, leave it, it's good." She'd already started running, and at an impressive clip, he thought, her legs impossibly long in their stride. "We used to make out to Zeppelin in high school, actually," she said with a grin of nostalgia-and maybe more-and it sure got Rick going, because within seconds, he was gliding away on his machine like his life depended on it. "You're really working that thing. Careful you don't burn out. We just started."

That was funny, because he suddenly had more energy than a ten-year-old on Halloween night, and he was grateful they'd only just started, because he knew he wasn't going to be working it off any other way, certainly not the way he wanted to.

 **xxxx**

A bead of perspiration rolled from Kate's arm and landed on his neck as she stood over him in spot of his lift, and with the trail of its tickle, Rick had to surrender the barbell to the rack. It was their last set of the night, and, quite frankly, the unexpected intervention came as a welcome one, because, by that point, she'd already challenged his body to such a degree, he was operating on fumes alone.

"Three? That's all you've got?" she chuckled in taunt, as he willed his muscles to sit him upright. "Oh, how I love the taste of free beer in the evening."

"Excuse me, Mr. Duvall," he all but panted, recognizing her film allusion, "but I believe there should be a flag on the play for glandular interference. Your superstar sweat got all up in my lifting mojo. Heck, I might've gotten four if not for you."

Kate reached for the water bottle by her feet and squeezed some into her mouth, before doing the same for him. "I think I'm going to have to check the Sore Losers' Manual on that one," she said, squirting him a bit extra in the face before dropping into the clearing on the mat for a final stretch. "Get down here and do this with me, old man. You need it. It just took you ten minutes to sit up. "

Her body was like water, bending and curving with utmost grace, even after the combat she'd put it through, and Rick was positively awed. He pushed himself from the bench to the floor and crawled over beside her, did his best to keep up, to mimic her movements in his weary state.

"You barely look like you lifted a finger, you know that?" he said in a pause of admiration. "I'm over here huffing and creaking and wincing and you look just as beautiful as you did when you walked in." He rolled flat onto his back, tucked his legs up as they'd been when she'd first found him. "I'm not sure what kind of fair that's supposed to be."

Even with her skin warm from exertion, she felt his words blush her neck, her cheeks-her intensifying yen. "That's nice of you to say, but I bet a mirror would tell me otherwise. Do you mind if I take a quick shower before we head out?"

"Not at all, I guess I'll do the same. You're welcome for that." She stood first, reached a hand out to help him up, which he took, a union that sent something powerful through her. "Thanks," he said without letting go.

That was the moment she heard it in his eyes, and she wasn't the only one.

"So, I'll, um, I guess I'll just meet you outside the locker room, then."

Rick looked down at their hands and finally opened his.

"Yeah, I'll meet you," he said, with the ghost of a tickle on his neck.


	5. Chapter 5

Mick's wasn't a joint anyone should remember, its bar beaten, its floor creaky, and its booth upholstery worn, but local cops-its predominant clientele for the better part of its eighteen-year run-considered it something of a second home, and come the end of a shift, the humble space filled up with them, as they endeavored to unburden themselves of the weight of another day spent on the Empire City beat.

Rick hadn't been sure he should even suggest the place, given the woman Kate was, given her stature, but, to his surprise, she'd jumped at the idea, so there they found themselves, in a dim corner of Mick O'Reilly's bar, beneath the lamp with the bulb that always hummed, the air between them charged with a pulse of eagerness that both felt but neither could acknowledge.

"Are you sure this is okay?" he asked over the buzz of the Friday night denizens. "I imagine it's probably about as far from the glamour you're used to as we could get."

"I think how you imagine I spend my time is probably about as far from reality as _you_ could get. Trust me, this is perfect." She swallowed from her bottle of Sam Adams, eyed him as she did, his hair still damp from the shower and settled invitingly above his brow. "When I'm not working, I'm usually at home where it's quiet, where I can read a book or watch an old movie or work on some painting."

Old movie-he knew it. And she painted, too? Christ, he was truly being tested.

He shook his head with a puff of a chuckle, took a swig of his own beer. "I'm sure next you'll tell me Cary Grant is your favorite."

"He is, actually. Why do you say it like that?"

 _Because the universe is a cruel bitch that hates me_ , he thought, though he offered a response far less unhinged. "Just a lucky guess. I suppose I figured you'd be out all the time at big Hollywood events and stuff."

Kate paused thoughtfully. "I'm an actor, Rick. That's just my job. It's not my life. When I have to be out for a project or I want to support a friend's work, I'm out, otherwise I'm probably not. All of that really isn't my thing."

She wasn't what he'd expected, what he'd assumed she'd be like, and the more time he spent with her, the more she proved that. Of course, it also made his draw to her all the more difficult to cope with, because, as it was turning out, she wasn't just some celebrity for him to make goo-goo eyes at for a few weeks and shove out the precinct door, someone to flirt with and forget. She felt real, comfortable, right, and they felt more alike than he could believe.

"I'm sorry. I hope I didn't upset you. I'm a cop. You'd think I'd know better than to make assumptions."

"You didn't, don't worry about it. It happens a lot. It seems to come with the territory."

Despite her assurance, there was something in her voice, something melancholy, and even with the room growing rowdier around them Rick heard it. "I wish it didn't," he said in all sincerity, because if those people only knew. "Speaking of territory," he went on, pivoting for light, "why did you make the move from modeling to acting? Shaw told me you were a pretty big deal in those circles. Well, actually, I think it was more like she kind of hissed it at me and then gave me an annoyed look for not already knowing, but where's the news flash in that?"

He earned a smile and reveled in it.

"I really loved it at first, you know, the excitement of it, but I, um, it got to the point where I needed to be someone who didn't have to be perfect all the time, someone who could have flaws, as we all do, and that world couldn't give that to me. I'd done a little bit of acting in school and always enjoyed how creative and collaborative it was, its, sort of, risk and reward, so I took some classes on my own and ended up landing some auditions with the help of some connections I'd made. The rest, I guess, is very lucky history."

Rick nodded his understanding. "Making that decision and taking a chance like that couldn't have been easy. Boldness becomes you, if I may…be so bold. And I get the risk and reward thing. That was much of the reason I became a cop-that and the humongous salary, obviously." He rolled his eyes and tipped back his bottle.

"Are you trying to make me feel guilty about having to buy me this beer? How about you just take it out of tomorrow's doughnut budget, huh?"

"You and Shaw, two peas in a pod, I swear."

"I'll take that as a compliment, thanks," Kate replied with a verbal wink. "So, come on, now you know what boring ol' me does with her free time. How about you? What do you and your girlfriend like do when you're not out saving the city?" The question sounded innocent enough in her head, but there was something in the words as they came out that felt anything but. "Unless I'm being too nosy."

She unconsciously wet her lips and Rick felt a jolt. "No, it's fine," he said breezily, though his insides suddenly felt cinched up in a knot. "I don't know. I guess we do normal stuff-go to the movies, sometimes, or out to eat, or to events for the gallery. She's in art. That's how we met." He really didn't want to talk about Kyra, for a hundred reasons, but now there she was.

"Are you an artist, too?" she asked with a pinch of excitement.

"Me? No, I just tripped over an insane crush I had on a girl from my dorm in college and landed in an art history major. That helped me snag a spot in the Major Case Squad with the department, focusing on art theft and fraud. Kyra and I crossed paths during a case."

"It's always about a girl, isn't it? And Botticelli to bodies? How did that happen?"

A cop, still in uniform, walked by and punched Rick on the shoulder, paused to give Kate a shameless once-over, and then moved on, all without a word.

"Sorry. A friend," he told her, with a burn in his arm that he swallowed without a grimace for the sake of his pride. "I learned a lot working with the team in Majors, and it was a great opportunity early on, but…" His eyes met hers over his angled bottle. "I wanted more. I wanted the best. Homicide is the best." Kate smiled softly, glanced up at the lamp and its bulb with the hum. "And your boyfriend, Superstar?"

The muscles in his legs tensed beneath the table, his knees coming together like they were two powerful magnets. All he knew about him to that point was that he did yoga with her before bed every night, and he wasn't quite sure why he'd asked, because that was already more than he really wanted to know.

For a second, she considered just going with it, just pretending there was, in fact, someone, to put a check on herself, to help keep her from doing or saying something she shouldn't, but that second swiftly came and went.

"I don't have one." Her brow furrowed with his expression. "What's that look for?"

"You said…What about Mr. Yoga?" Kate turned his look right back around on him. "Every night before bed? You mentioned him in the gym earlier."

"Grady? You mean Grady?" Of course Rick remembered his stupid name, but that didn't mean he wanted to acknowledge it. "He's not my boyfriend. He's one of my closest friends, and, trust me, he'd much rather be on your arm than mine."

 _Holy shit, thank God_ was his first thought, and the second he vocalized, one because he couldn't embarrass himself with that one, and two because he wanted selfishly to try and make her laugh.

"Okay, but, I mean, like, on a scale from one to ten, how cute is he, and does he enjoy long walks on the beach at sunset? A man does have his wants."

Success. And the delicious sound of her lit up their tiny corner of Mick's world.

"Well, he's taken this week, I'm afraid, and, knowing him, I would suggest you stick around for next, but you're already spoken for, unfortunately." She polished off the last of her beer. "I guess that's just some bad luck for Grady," she added, though, in all honesty, she wasn't so much speaking of Grady's luck, as of her own.

"I know I was only on the hook for one, but with the rest of my doughnut money, can I get you another? I don't want to keep you from something if you have other plans."

"You aren't and I don't, and I'll have one if you'll have one."

Rick shifted his focus toward the bar and, after a moment, won Mick's attention, held up two fingers before another round was delivered personally. "She's way too beautiful for you. You know that, right?" the bar owner with the time-chiseled face needled.

Kate grinned in thanks, her eyes meeting Rick's. "Yes, I do know that, Mick. Thank you for spelling it out for me, though. I also know the next time you get a ticket for blocking the alley and need a favor, my helpline will be ringing busy."

"Just for that, full price on the Sams."

"Get back there where you belong, would ya? I'd like to continue to have my hopes crushed into dust without an audience, if you don't mind."

"You come back in here any time, beautiful, with or without Mr. Artsy-Fartsy here. I'll take care of you," Mick assured Kate before he wandered back to his usual perch.

"I like this place a lot," she said. "And him."

Rick's phone was out on the table, and it lit up when a text message came through, Kyra's name flashing across the screen. Her plane had landed, and she was making her way to a cab for home. He excused the interruption and typed a reply, that he'd see her for breakfast-as much as the hour she had for him would allow for one-and set the phone aside again.

"Sorry about that." More than sorry, though, he was angry with himself, because he'd instantly felt like Kyra was intruding on something, which wasn't at all fair. "She just got back from a business trip."

Kate hummed around a sip. "You don't have to be. It's nice to have someone to check in with. At least, that's how I remember it. It's been a long time." She played it off, but she wanted that, too, and with someone whose aim didn't turn out to be hitching himself to her success for his own gain, as had been the case with her previous journey down love lane.

"How is…? I can't…" Twelve thoughts entered Rick's brain at the same time, and not one of them would come out coherently. "I don't even understand," he pushed out finally. It didn't even seem possible to him that she could be alone, though it could be precisely the way she wanted it.

Her fingers had set to anxiously picking at her bottle's label, the strips of paper dropped into a small pile. "What hopes are being crushed, by the way?" she asked, ignoring the voice of better judgment in her head that had advised her not to, but just as treading on dangerous ground often gave rise to fear, it also had a way of provoking thrill, and that was the tightrope she currently found herself walking with him.

"What do you mean?"

She let another tear of silver paper fall to the table. "Nothing, never mind." It was just as well he'd already forgotten. She still had three weeks at the precinct, and her focus was already rattled. "Thanks for tonight, by the way. I had fun."

"Yeah?"

"You sound surprised. You don't think you're fun, Chuckles?"

"That's never going to go away, is it?"

"Not anytime soon, nope," Kate said contentedly, and Rick smirked, all the while quietly grateful.

 **xxxx**

Kate tapped on Grady's bedroom door when she got back to the apartment, surprised to hear his voice come back and invite her in, given that it was Friday night and he was Grady. She stepped inside and found him already tucked into bed, a stack of men's magazines of the month at his side, the TV tuned to the home design program of the hour.

"I didn't think you'd be home," she said, crossing the minimally decorated room of white and collapsing onto the bed beside him. "No date night with the man?" She pushed off her shoes, grabbed the issue with Clooney on the cover and ogled it with pleasure.

"That's my date for tonight," he replied with a point at the magazine in her hands. "And him and him and him," he continued giddily about the other cover men. "My actual man had to work, it turned out. But enough about me and my social woes, tell me about your hot and sweaty gym rendezvous with Training Officer Sexy. Was it hot and sweaty…in the good way?"

She clacked her tongue at him. "Does your mind ever manage to crawl out of the gutter? I told you, he has a girlfriend, and it's not like that."

"K, please, this is me you're talking to. Did you hear how you just said _girlfriend,_ because my ears were o-pen and I sure as hell did?"

Kate tossed Clooney aside, dropped her forearm across her eyes. "You didn't hear anything. You don't know what you're talking about."

Grady hummed mockingly, clearly believing otherwise. "Oh, I do not think so, missy. I know that tone better than anyone. Are you forgetting I was the one who had to listen to all those stories about the stunt coordinator on that movie, the one with the tattoos and the cleft like Mitchum? You're going to try and pretend I don't know when Kate Beckett wants her a man? Honey, trust me, I am the expert on Kate Beckett wanting a man."

"First of all, don't say it like I pinned you down and forced you to listen. You loved every minute of it, and you ate it up like one of your stupid reality shows. Second of all, he turned out to be a dick."

"Yes, I remember that, too, but before that happened, you definitely wanted to have you some of his, even though he was supposedly giving it to that awful whatever-she-was."

She couldn't help but giggle. "I forgot all about her. Jesus, she was so strange. I swear all I ever saw her eat for six weeks was gummy bears." With an exaggerated swing, she rolled onto her stomach, propped her chin up on his leg. "I don't know what the hell it is, G. I can't stop thinking about him. Usually I'm more…"

Grady reached out and tucked her fallen hair back behind her ear. "In control? Yeah, I know, sweetie, and I know how much you hate it when you feel like you aren't." His warmhearted sentiment hung in the air for but a second before he pressed on to the matter more important. "So, when do I get to meet him?"

"Gee, thanks for all the concern and sage advice," she grumbled, "and I don't know, now, maybe never. You sound like you want it too much, and I'm not sure I can trust you. Even you know you can't keep your mouth shut."

"That's what he said," he quipped to a roll of the eyes. "Come on, I can behave myself for one night. But maybe you think you can't. Maybe that's the problem." He touched the tip of his nose with his index finger and nodded smugly.

He was right. He was so goddamned right.

Kate stretched and picked up the magazine she'd discarded, flipped to Clooney's spread somewhere near the middle. Some distraction he turned out to be, though. The photographer had snapped him devouring a doughnut.


	6. Chapter 6

Kate stood anxiously in the lane beside hers, watched with her mouth unconsciously agape as bullets erupted from Jordan's SIG Sauer P226 and struck the shadowy form outlined upon the paper target that hung at twenty-five yards. Being the only two in the range, the room fell silent once the detective had emptied her trusted service weapon, save for the sound of the retrieval carrier's motor, chugging the wounded mock perpetrator back towards her for scrutiny.

"That was amazing," Kate shouted through the thin wall that divided them and the ear protection she'd donned for safety. "I could feel it in my heart." When no reply came, she took a step back, angled her head for a peek.

"I lost one in the trap," Jordan said aloud, though apparently to herself and with a hint of disgust at her own failure, the number of penetrating holes short. "Son of a bitch," she pushed out in a whisper, recalling Rick's recent knock at her aim. That was a both a blessing and a curse for Jordan. She remembered everything.

Kate didn't understand, of course, couldn't understand, not as she stood there staring at the same paper riddled with successful hits, each, to her, surely precise enough to put any evildoer down. And so she said nothing of it, instead leaving Jordan to her moment, all the while covertly applauding the woman she grew more impressed by with each passing day.

The end of her second week at the 12th was upon her, and the partners again found themselves in wait of a case. They'd managed to close the strangulation and a subsequent shooting with relative ease-not that their speed took anything away from the accomplishments for Kate-and Rick had been away for most of the day, called to testify in court on another matter, something required of both from time to time. So, it was just she and Jordan, which had her positively charged, in truth, despite a nip of disappointment in his absence that she couldn't quite shake.

"How many times have you had to use it?" Kate glanced down at the weapon on the counter and back up again. "Your gun, I mean."

"Yeah, I knew what you meant." There was a smile in her words, but not on her lips. "You like numbers, don't you?" It wasn't the first question in that realm Kate had asked, but unlike the others, she had that answer, and without having to dig for it.

"Like counting bullet holes in a target? That kind of numbers?" Kate lobbed in retort, feeling somewhat pleased with herself, yet hopeful the sarcasm didn't land poorly.

Jordan pulled off her eye protection and set it next to the weapon, folded her first effort's souvenir and discarded it to the floor. "You've been spending too much time with Castle." Kate felt her face drain instantly white. "Relax, Kate," she said, clearly noticing a shift. "It only annoys the shit out of me when he does it." It wasn't true, but it was true enough. "The answer to your question is six-two fatals."

"I don't know if that's a lot or not for what it is you do every day, but was it hard for you afterward, dealing with it?" Kate shook her head, almost as the words were still coming out of her mouth. "Sorry, that's probably a really stupid question."

Jordan moved for the table behind them and grabbed another target, set to securing it in the carrier for another round. "I don't know you very well, Kate, but nothing about what I do know tells me you're stupid." She flipped the switch and out sailed her second perp. "There aren't many things about what I do that I consider easy, even after years of doing them. Pulling my weapon and having to fire it would sit at the bottom of that list. When the person on the other end of the bullet dies, hard doesn't begin to touch what it is, but I get through it."

Kate didn't push beyond that. She'd already heard more than she expected to, and though, as Jordan had said, they hardly knew one another, she understood it wasn't the time for greed.

"Going again?"

The detective situated her eyewear, pointed at Kate's safety gear as an instruction, and nodded once. "I need to pick up my spare," she remarked, her bowling reference gathered and appreciated. "Then it's your turn." With that she disappeared again behind that thin wall that separated them, Kate's heart pounding even before the thud of the first bullet echoed across the room.

 **xxxx**

Jordan ushered Kate out of the range, just temporarily so, asked her to wait in the hallway outside the door, while she went to retrieve her a weapon. She returned moments later with a Glock in hand-not one of hers, mind you, yet, indeed, NYPD issue-one that seemed better suited to someone set to fire for the first time, and then back inside they went, Kate working with each step to calm the flutter of the butterflies flapping in her stomach.

They approached the lane Jordan had used, and Kate grabbed what she'd left in the one beside it as her target was mounted and prepared. "I said it before. Glasses on in the box, always, shooting or not." The student did as the teacher instructed and slid them on. "And breathe, Kate. This'll go a million times better if you do."

Busted and rosy with embarrassment, Kate dropped the shoulders she was unknowingly holding clinched in a fixed shrug of tenseness and extracted her fists from her pockets. _Stop it! You can do this,_ sounded a voice inside. "Rick told me I hold my breath, too. I never realized," she replied, and was then left to wonder why she'd felt the need.

"Yeah, well, if I could find a week's free time, I might be able tell you about all the weird shit he does. Step up here."

The fact that Kate knew about Jordan having personally requested Rick for her partner-and over the initial inclination of her captain, at that-still jumped to the forefront of her brain whenever she let one of her sarcastic gems drop at his expense. She wasn't certain whether or not he knew, too, whether she'd ever shared that bit of truth with him, but their bond was unmistakable, and that they also had that playfulness between them was what made them so great.

"I've held a prop gun for work, but it didn't feel like this," Kate commented as Jordan unboxed the necessary rounds to be loaded. "Is this what you learned with?"

"The first gun I ever shot would've blown that one to Jersey. This is the gun I made myself better with. I used it my first four years on the job. And since you seem so interested, Castle still uses it now," she added, and with some kind of hint in her voice that wasn't at all what Kate needed to hear before what she was about to do. "You should ask him to bring you down here. See how many he lands in the rubber."

Kate experienced an involuntary flush of titillation with a suggestion that'd surely only been offered to amuse, but that didn't detract from her enjoyment of its punch.

"I assume him would be me, Shaw? If so, it would be my pleasure to demonstrate to our apprentice how a real gun works. You just say the word, Superstar," Rick boasted as he neared, more in intimation of his own skill than of his weapon's, of course. "Miss me?"

He looked directly at Kate when he asked, and she was instantly grateful Jordan interjected, because she might've dribbled out a yes, otherwise, his body clothed in a charcoal grey suit that absolutely was not fucking playing fair.

"Don't be too impressed," his partner admonished Kate of the courtroom duds. "It's the only one he has. And where did you even come from?"

Rick nodded mockingly. "Used my ninja training, and she's right, for a change, but enough about my closet woes, how about we talk about my impending victory, instead? A man's prowess with his weapon is challenged? He earns the right to fire back, so to speak."

Kate's mind couldn't help but wander with his suggestive language, and coupled with the not-fucking-playing-fair suit, she was growing even jitterier.

"What do you say, Shaw, two detectives, two clips, two targets, one winner?" His piece revealed itself tucked into a leather holster at his ribs when he stripped off his jacket, and, somehow, for Kate, the package became even sexier. "And wait for the fun catch, kids…eyes closed."

"Where'd you manage to squeeze the flask into that thing, Castle?"

Looking at Kate, he snapped his brow in an unspoken _Watch this_. "Scared?" he taunted.

"Responsible," Jordan barked back, chafed at the insinuation.

"Do it," Kate chimed in, earning a triumphant grin from Rick until she finished her thought. "He sounds too sure. He doesn't have it."

Between the sisterly boost and the bewilderment on his face, Jordan swiftly saw her way around the shouldn't and reached for her SIG.

"And after I took you out for beer, Superstar?" Rick clasped his hands over his chest and feigned a wound, not realizing what it was he'd said until both sets of eyes were on him. "Fine, it wasn't so much generosity as a lost bet," he acknowledged for Kate's sake. "And, fine, it wasn't so much a whatever-you're-thinking as a stop-in at Mick's after shift." That was for Jordan, and it stung.

"Let's go, Castle. This'll be easy. Apparently you're losing a lot of bets, lately." Jordan snapped her stacked clip into place. "And no one hears a word about this. Kate, extra goggles and muffs in the bin under the table. Get them on."

Kate backed away, gathered the supplies as ordered, and Rick slid into his lane, both targets already staring back at the pair from distance. Over his shoulder he found her and mouthed his promise. "We can play after I win." For fun, she took an exaggerated step to the left and aligned herself with his opponent. Though she wouldn't hear it, "Actors," he grumbled, before clamping the requisite earwear over his head.

"So, what do I get?" Jordan hollered, their terms not yet established.

"When you lose, you get to eat a big bag of doughnuts tomorrow," he yelled back. "You only dropped in fifteen, right? No cheating now, Shaw."

"I know your pussy pistol can only handle fifteen, Castle, relax," she jeered, and Kate snickered.

"Nice language in front of company, darling. Shoot until you're empty. No peeking. If one of us hits center, it's an automatic win, otherwise most holes in Mr. Silhouette takes it."

Kate couldn't wait to hear of Rick's potential fate, so much so that she noticed her body angle for a closer listen.

"Hope the groupie won't miss you too much when you're stuck doing all the paperwork on our next ten closes."

"Ten?" he squawked to nothing but silence. "Whatever. On three."

Rick counted down and both of them fired, Kate flinching with each shot, despite her buffer from the sound, and when it stopped, she felt a peculiar excitement, a tingle in wait of the machines to glide down their respective tunnels and deliver the outcome. When they did, when she saw what'd happened, she couldn't help but laugh.

"Well, I guess it's two detectives, two clips, two targets, and _no_ winner." Rick and Jordan stood staring at their respective targets, sneaking glances at the other with confusion and disappointment. "It's kind of sweet, actually. You really are partners."

The two gave her a simultaneous eye, and then Jordan handed over her target. "My final lesson to you for the day: Don't waste your time with games," she said as she cleared her weapon and gathered her stuff. "Nobody wins." With a flick to the backside of Rick's paper, she pulled him from his daze. "I'm going upstairs. You're finishing this?"

"Yeah, I'm, yeah."

"Have fun, you two," she told them, and walked off with a smirk.

"You know, I have to say, it might've been kind of fun to watch her try to eat a jelly doughnut," Kate confessed with discernible disappointment. "Bright side? More for you, I guess."

"I was going to bring in my good camera, too. Such a monumental event would've deserved only the best." He gave Mr. Silhouette one last look and tore him in half. "So, I guess it's just you and me then." Kate pushed her hands back into her pockets, because she suddenly felt like she had no idea what to do with herself. "I know you didn't expect to have Professor Castle as a substitute, but I think you're better off, really. I mean, Shaw never even tries to hit our shadowy friend in funny places. That's half the fun."

"I didn't expect to be doing this at all, actually. She just, kind of, told me I was. Not that I'm not curious. I'm definitely curious." And that was certainly a true statement-true and loaded. "But, honestly, it scares the shit out of me."

Rick reached out a hand in ask of hers, but let it fall when she hesitated. "Sorry, I was just…Come on. I'll try to make it as not scary as I can." A step behind, Kate followed him into the lane, imagined what their hands might've felt like wrapped around each other and then promptly called herself on the sappy musing. "Um, right, something to aim at might help."

"You won't last a day at this school, Professor," she teased.

"In my classroom, a student waits to be called on, Katherine." She smiled, and he went for the table and a new target. "Ah, and the safety goggles are already on I see, very nice."

"I learned from the best," Kate replied, taking a playful dig.

"The best," he mumbled. "So I keep being reminded. Okay," he said with a clap, "so, I'm going to send our flat friend here out to his final resting place, and you are going to come and stand right by my side, right in here. And, yes, I did use soap today in the shower, you know, for court and everything, but I am out of gum, so apologies in advance if I offend."

"You chew more gum than anyone I've ever seen." He settled one foot between hers from behind, his body brushing hers at the hip, and her fear quickly began to fade into something far more pleasurable. "What's that about?"

A wisp of her hair kissed his jaw when she turned, and he fought not to react. That, he knew, would be the very least of his challenges ahead. "I don't know, really. It just, sort of, became a thing. When I'm at a scene, for some reason it helps me block out all the other noise, so I can just focus on what that place is trying to tell me." He reached around her back and squared up her shoulders, set her straight. "Lined up to target. Easiest way to hit it."

Being that close to her felt almost like being in a museum with an exquisite piece of art, one whose beauty seemed so beyond the realm of possibility, that merely looking at it wasn't enough. The proof of its realness could exist only in touch, yet touch was forbidden.

"I watched you when we were in that apartment and in the alley. The way you were." Jordan had told her to let him do what he had to, so she'd never asked, but she'd wondered ever since.

"I look and I listen, just in my own way, and it's always worked. I put myself in the middle of a room and it talks to me. Maybe it's like you with eyes, how you hear things. For me, it's crime scenes." It was so captivating a moment, Kate nearly forgot where she was, his voice so soothing in her ear, almost like a lullaby. "Kate," she heard then, and like it wasn't the first time he'd said it. "Take it." She glanced down and the gun was flat in his hand. "It's okay. Finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot."

When she relieved him of it, his fingertips found her waist, just above the line of her denim, and settled there. "Have you ever taught anyone else how to do this?"

"No one that smelled as good as you do. I'll tell you that." The vanilla was dancing around him, and he was inhaling every bit of it he could. "Now, all I want you to do is shake hands with the grip. Don't squeeze it to death, don't limp through it. Just give it a grasp, nice and easy. We're going to try to keep you just like that."

"Got it."

"Feet are planted, distance is good at the shoulders, and we want a little bit of bend in the knees, a little bit of lean in the upper body." At her back, his palm angled her ever so slightly and then lingered a second. "Good. You okay? It probably feels kind of strange and forced, but it's for a reason."

"It does, but I'm okay, as long as you don't push me over."

"Well, we'll see how it goes. For the final piece of the puzzle, I want you to push straight out from the middle of your chest with your arms extended. Perfect, exactly. You're a natural."

When he reached for her muffs on the counter, she caught herself holding her breath and slowly released it. The butterflies had quieted, thanks in no small part to the calm of his voice, but they'd awakened again with his fleeting touch, and she was at their mercy.

"You're just about ready. Your left hand's going to come up and wrap around the other side of the grip to help with leverage and support. You have two sights along the top of the weapon, a front and a rear. We want those lined up to the center of Mr. Silhouette, and we're looking at that front sight to be the focus for your aim."

"Is the gun going to jerk when I fire it?"

Rick smiled softly. "First time around, yeah, there's going to be some recoil, but only because the sensation is going to be new. I'm not concerned about that, and you shouldn't be, either. We should only be concerned about getting through it without any holes in _us_."

"I'm telling you, you're a regular riot, Chuckles."

He moved back in behind her, held the muffs around her head. "I'm going to put these on you, and then I want you to use those sights, find your aim, and then, as smoothly as you can, squeeze that trigger-straight back, constant pressure until it shoots. Just once for now and then set the weapon down. We can adjust what we need to from there."

Kate nodded, but didn't say a word as she worked to swallow down the knot of nerves in her throat. With her ears covered, she felt him go, but knew he wasn't far, and though that offered just a modicum of comfort in her excited state, it was still surely of help. A few exaggerated inhales and exhales behind her, she finally found herself ready to forge ahead, and she inched her finger towards her, sent a round tearing through the lower corner of the hanging mark.

It was both odd and overwhelming, the pride Rick felt once she'd done it, and he wanted to go to her, to hug her and kiss her, to celebrate that silly thing with her like children who'd won some game. But, of course, he could not, so he did the next best thing. He teased.

"Okay, so maybe that bad guy got away. Don't worry, though. There are plenty of other crooks out there. I'm sure you'll get the next one."

She turned and looked over her shoulder. "Yeah, maybe when our regular teacher comes back," she wisecracked, and her entire body softened.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Just a note to let you know I'll be out of town next week, so the usual Thursday update won't be posted until the following Monday. I hope this finds all of you smiling and happy. ~KB**

* * *

Rick knew it was Kyra. Of course it was. There was her body, bare and breathless, straddled atop his in the pale Saturday morning light of his bedroom, as it had been hundreds of times before, and yet the only face he could see was Kate's, the only voice he could hear was Kate's, the only skin he wanted to touch and to smell and to taste was Kate's.

The faster she moved, the more she demanded, the more, for him, time seemed to slow. Every grunt, every moan, felt like the prick of a knife's tip at his muscle, draining him of energy, delivering him deeper into the exhaustion of his battle, reminding him what a cowardly excuse for a man he'd been.

He didn't love Kyra. That wasn't true. He did love her, but not enough, not enough to excuse the inaction or the selfishness. It should've been over long ago- before the last time it was over or the time before that-yet the sound of her pleas for his body to fill hers had continued to crash against the walls and come back at him like a roaring wave, over and over again.

They'd been without Kate at the precinct the day before, and, again, they hadn't known why-not that the Jordan part of they ever gave why a second thought, he knew-but the without was having its trying way with Rick, and after being so goddamned close to her in the range, wherever she'd gone felt even more painfully out of reach.

How foolish it all was, and how clearly he saw that. There was no denial, no wool over his eyes. He was a cop standing in the shadow of his partner's blinding starlight, a grown man who owned two forks, paid eight bucks and a grimace for his haircuts, and Kate Beckett wouldn't be that man's anything. And that's what was eating him, especially as he lay there screwing someone else in his bed. He knew. He knew better than to have let it reach the point where Kate was all he could see and hear and want.

"Come on," Kyra appealed with what little breath she had left. "Shit, Rick, why did you stop? I was just about to go again."

Their sex had always been mind-blowing, ever since the beginning, and that it-probably one of the only rafts helping to keep them afloat-now, apparently, couldn't manage to hold his attention, seemed the reddest of flags.

Her hands pressed into his chest, their weight like a boulder on top of him. He didn't even realize he'd stopped. He wasn't even sure he knew she'd gone a first time. "Sorry," he offered feebly. "I must just be tired. It was a long week." And work had been the least of reasons for it, but that certainly required no mention.

Kyra rolled off of him, settled in beside, but neither said a word as the city grew brighter beyond the window blinds, that was until her phone chirped into the silence. Finding it on the nightstand, she propped herself up on her elbow to tend to it, her chestnut waves tumbling down her back in Rick's view. Nostalgically, he recalled the feather-soft tickle of Kate's hair as it'd brushed his jaw, and he caught his eyes smiling, chastised himself for his mind's stray.

"Work?" he asked when she set the phone aside and turned back, though he had little doubt. It was always work with Kyra. "Since when does Victor keep bakers' hours?" She didn't move back into him. She always clung to him afterward. Of course, he hadn't ever left her dangling at the edge of multiple orgasms, so maybe it was just that. "I need coffee," he said aloud when nothing came, more to will his muscles than to state a plan.

"I slept with someone. In London." She'd been there with Victor the week prior, for an event at the Tate, or so she'd said, and she'd returned as she always did, with too many Burberry scarves in her Vuitton and the world's greatest undiscovered artist in her pocket.

Rick sat upright, dropped his feet to the floor. "So, I guess it wasn't work, then." His sarcasm dripped like he wished the coffee already was. "Well, I know how much you enjoy a good accent." When he stood up, he heard her phone chirp again, but they both left it.

"What's wrong with you this morning?"

He bent for his boxers, pulled them on and went for the door. "Neither of us is going to like the answer if I don't get some fucking coffee."

Kyra said his name-whispered it, really-but he was gone, farther gone than he already had been. She dressed, gave him time, just minutes because that was all she could take, and then she had to follow. She found him standing in the kitchen, the bag of coffee out on the counter yet still unopened.

"I didn't plan it, Rick. I swear."

What could he possibly say? What could he possibly say that wasn't some hypocritical bullshit? No, he hadn't gone off and screwed someone else; he'd done something worse. He'd screwed her, and all the while imagined someone else.

"I know you didn't," he replied, and he believed that. He knew how she felt about him, how much greater her investment in their relationship had been than his. "I can't be in this anymore, Kyra. For a lot of reasons, I can't be, not for me or for you, and we can't keep coming back to something that isn't here."

"You know I love you." Her chin dropped as she lingered in a pause. "I don't know why I did this. And I don't know why I told you like this."

Rick approached, brushed her cheek with his thumb. "You don't do anything without a reason. You never have. But I'm not in any position to ask you for one, so I'll just tell you that I'm sorry for what I wasn't able to give you, and that I love you, too."

Though they hadn't yet fallen, she had tears in her eyes, and he couldn't recall a time he'd ever seen them before. That was Kyra, and this end wasn't like any of the others. It was clear they both understood that.

"I'm sorry, too, Rick. I'm so sorry." Her head dipped to his chest and he hugged her into his body. "Can we…Will we still talk? I can't imagine not hearing your voice."

He hummed an uncertain reply. He couldn't offer an answer he didn't have. Shaw would be proud, he thought. She'd always told him he should just keep his damn mouth shut when he didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

 **xxxx**

He'd left the apartment only for a sandwich from the deli that afternoon, the ballgame occupying his time and his mind-as much as the Mets and their current losing streak could, at least. Kyra was gone before coffee, and that was as fine as it could be, the twinge of guilt in his relief picking at him across the hours since, as thoughts of Kate crept in and out.

It was near 3PM and the middle of the fifth inning when his phone rang, the number one he didn't recognize except to say it wasn't local, so, gratefully, he assumed it wasn't work-related. He wasn't sure what sort of mood he was in, exactly, but he was sure he wasn't in the mood for work.

"Castle," he answered with professional polish despite his inference, as the Mets came up to bat again, already down by four.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking for a Detective Chuckles."

The shock of it hit him like a speeding train. Of all the people who could've picked up their phones and dialed his number in that moment, Kate Beckett was the very last of those people he would've imagined it to be.

"How did you get my number?" There was no greeting, no recognition of her by name. He simply had no time what with trying to gather himself from the startle.

"Why, is it supposed to be a secret?" Kate asked around a snicker.

Rick envied the calm in her voice, the casualness in her tone, as his heart pounded away in his chest, though he'd remained tucked into a corner of the couch like a bump on a log for most of the day. Reaching for the table and the neck of his beer, he chugged until his throat stung and the clouds of his nerves saw way to part, however minimally.

"Depends who's asking for it," he said, dabbing the dribble from his chin, thankful she had no view of the ugly show. "I mean, if it's just some random actress from L.A., maybe."

"I'll let my friends know. And if you're truly curious, Detective Ellison gave it to me."

"You talked to Ellison? He has a little crush on you, you know." Though his mouth was empty, he still managed to almost choke on his beer with the germaneness of his chosen course. "Did he require smelling salts?"

It was a second or two before her response came as she, too, calculated her move. " _I_ nearly did, actually. That red hair of his is quite dreamy."

Somehow, Rick managed to find his way back to the game-the one on the television-and mouthed an expletive as the second batter struck out right behind the first. "So, Superstar, to what do I owe the pleasure of this interruption, which I should thank you for, by the way. My Mets are playing like shit this afternoon. Are you in need of NYPD services? Not an emergency, I hope. We have a different number for that."

"Just this afternoon?" she wisecracked about his most beloved and frustrating team, and he instantly fell deeper.

"Touché."

Alone in her car, Kate sat overlooking the ocean, the Malibu waves breaking at the feet of swimmers and surfers alike. She often came to the beach to think, to clear her head on the breeze, to bring herself back to center when she felt off-balance, and that was now her state, had been for two weeks, because of him and whatever it was about him that pulled at her like the moon did the tide.

"No, I don't need anything. I just, um, I was in the store before, waiting to pay for my groceries, and there was all this gum at the register. I guess it just made me think of you, for some reason. I can't imagine why."

"I'm sorry, what? Gom? Goom, you said? Never heard of the stuff. Maybe pick one up for me if you ever see it somewhere again."

Kate chuckled out a breath. "I'll do that. It's all over L.A. Stuff'll change your life."

"You're in L.A.?" He felt glad to know where she was. He felt sad to know.

"I have some press stuff to do on Monday, so I came out for a long weekend to stay at the house, be with my things, try to soak up a little bit of home before I have to come back."

It was terribly sweet how she'd put it, but he necessarily moderated his reaction. "That sounds nice. Put on some Cary Grant and read a good book." Odd to go from thinking of someone to missing them in the blink of an eye, but he did. "When will the golden girl of New York and I be seeing you?" He included Jordan, because.

"I have a flight out on Monday night, so I'll be in on Tuesday. I was thinking maybe you might want to hit the gym again, if you have time with work, obviously."

"Cases, schmases, yeah, we can do that. I'll bring the appropriate attire with me. You'll bring…gumbo with you? Gumby? What was it, again?"

"Go watch your Mets play like shit," Kate said. "I'll see you on Tuesday."

"Good luck with your press stuff, and have a safe flight."

When they hung up, she rolled down all the windows on the car, let the salty air fill in around her. She felt happy to have soaked up a little bit of him, too.

 **xxxx**

"I don't like it when you're this quiet," Jordan shared suspiciously. "Not that I want you to talk, either, but the quiet, from you, I think might be worse." They were headed to a call just fifteen blocks from the 12th, but in the snarl of the early-Monday rush it might as well have been fifty. "Cruller not do it for you this morning?"

Rick didn't think she could see it, but it was there, hidden behind his effort at a stoic expression, the grin that Kate had planted nearly two days before and that still remained. His Saturday had been one of surprise, one that'd begun with an ending and ended with…well, he didn't really know, but there was to be tomorrow, and that, he knew, meant her return.

"A man can't just enjoy a simple car ride in peace?" he asked before a horn blared through his open window. "Nice on the timing," he muttered, eyeing the responsible party with a steeled glare.

Jordan knew there was something, some canary he'd swallowed that had him uncustomarily preoccupied, so she took a stab in the dark that wasn't so much a stab, she figured, as a well-calculated and adeptly-executed plunge straight into the bullseye.

"So, Montgomery said she's in L.A."

"Yeah, but she'll be back at the precinct tomorrow," Rick replied, a bit too eager.

Jordan caught his grin like it was contagious. "Is that right? Are you being cc'd on the schedule now?"

He left his phone and pivoted his head in her direction. "No, I'm not being cc'd on the schedule now," he mimicked like a child. "She called me this weekend." He wanted to kick himself immediately; so careful with the smile, so reckless with the words. "I mean, you know, just to tell me about a thing. It wasn't, like, a big deal."

"That's funny, because you're acting like it's a big deal." She hit the brakes hard at the light when the car in front of them did the same. "Asshole," she hissed. "You're a big boy, Castle, and you don't need to worry. I have more important things to do than tattle on you to your art princess." Rick looked at her like she suddenly had three heads. "You honestly think I haven't seen it, that I haven't heard it? I know you hate to admit how good I am at my job, but this isn't even a hard one."

"It doesn't matter if you did. Kyra's not my princess or anything else, anymore," he said, plucking the easy first. "Light's green."

They were still stuck, caught in the gridlock of the intersection. "And where would you like me to go, exactly?" She quickly assessed their situation and then asked. "How long before it's not over, this time?" When he didn't answer, when he didn't even look at her, Jordan saw something in him she never had before, and from that came a marked change in her tone. "I'm sure it doesn't, but if my opinion means anything, I don't think you're the only one," she told him, and then hit the siren to try and help clear them a path.

"I think you're pretty good at your job, Shaw," he said, one hand secured against the dash so he wouldn't get tossed around as she veered sharply to the left. "But I'm certain you're an absolutely shitty driver."


	8. Chapter 8

Montgomery was to be Kate's first stop that morning, their weekly chat pushed due to her Friday in L.A., and as was more often the case than not with her, she found herself having arrived late. They'd been scheduled for 7AM, the hour unfortunate but necessary, a conference call with 1PP and a day-long seminar downtown already on the books for the captain, and at twelve past that, she finally scurried off the elevator and through the morning-still bullpen toward his office.

By way of his wall of windows he'd seen her coming, had his spiel prepped as he would've for any one of his cops, because that's how she'd asked to be treated from the beginning-no different than anyone else. With a coffee in each hand, she stood in his doorway and awaited invitation inside, his eyes finding his watch before formally finding her.

"I'm a busy man, Beckett. You see this desk? It's filled with paperwork because I'm a busy man."

"Yes, sir," Kate acknowledged without yet daring a step. "I'm sorry I'm late. It's…a problem I have."

He waved her in with a brusque hand. "How about we don't waste more time talking about it? I have to be on a call in ten minutes that'll be two hours of nodding and agreeing to things that don't deserve either. Sit."

She followed instruction, but not before she set one of the coffees in front of him. "Maybe that'll help. No offense, but whatever it is you guys have in there doesn't deserve to be called coffee." With her bag off her shoulder and at her feet, she pushed back into the chair.

"Well, the NYPD doesn't have those cushy movie budgets of yours. Sometimes I feel lucky to find lights on in this place when I get here in the morning." He took a first sip from her offering, burned his tongue with his enthusiasm. "Son of a bitch, that's good," he beamed, satisfaction trumping pain.

"You should treat yourself more often, sir. Start the day off right." Like she was one to talk. Kate loathed mornings, especially early ones, and coffee was merely a Band-Aid on those bullet wounds, albeit a divine one when applied properly.

"You sound like my wife, and I'll tell you the same thing I tell her. I'm a busy man." He leaned back away from his desk, brought the coffee with him. "So, how was last week? You're still here, so something must be working." With a clear view out to Rick's and Jordan's vacant desks, he shook his head. "Those two, on the other hand, are not, apparently. Guess we'll all just wait." His second check of his watch-that one absent contrivance-came with honest exasperation.

Kate bit the inside of her cheek, resisted the urge to jump on the sarcasm bandwagon, though she easily could have and with enjoyment, in spite of her own admittedly regular tardiness. "Everything's been great, yeah. I've seen a lot and learned a lot since I've been here. I know not all actors need it, but the hands-on is really invaluable for me in my own process, so I can't thank you and your team enough for welcoming me and putting up with me as you have."

"You're a big improvement over that last jackass we had in here, I'll tell you that. Everyone in this place was lining up to smack that guy one."

"I've heard things," she said with a chuckle. "I guess I'll consider my time here a success if I manage to escape without any lines."

Montgomery righted his chair and settled in. "I've heard things, too, and it sounds like somebody here would definitely be ready to kick some ass if anyone even thought about it." He reached for his desk phone before dismissing her. "Go on, get out of here. Go solve something, since you're the only one that's bothered to show up for work this morning."

"Yes, sir." Kate picked up her bag and headed out with her coffee, the something she now wanted most to solve, the mystery of what the hell it was he'd heard.

 **xxxx**

"You know, Shaw, we should start sucking up and bringing Montgomery fancy coffee in the morning." Rick's chin sat perched atop his fist, flanked by the car's two headrests, as they made their way to the medical examiner's office for the report on their latest victim. "Maybe that'd score us an upgrade on this jalopy. I feel like I'm one of the Flintstones back here."

Kate angled her head just enough to flash her objection to the charge and then returned to her cup.

"If you sucked up any more, Castle, we'd be calling you Dyson, but you let me know how that plan goes," Jordan retorted, sending him back against the seat.

"And it wasn't sucking up," Kate added in her own defense, something of a fib though it was. "It's called being nice."

"Well, I like coffee, and my hand is empty, this morning, so," Rick protested playfully.

Kate turned, her counter swiftly locked and loaded. "Actually, your hand is filled with gum this morning, so you're welcome."

They smiled at one another, and Jordan could practically hear it as she pulled into the lot and parked. "Would you two rather continue your lovers' spat out here?" Before either could form the words to respond, Jordan was out and off.

"Welcome back to Shawville," Rick said, "where it always feels like a Monday morning with a hangover."

Kate downed her last lukewarm sip. "Good thing I had this, then, huh? And thanks, I kind of missed this place."

Rick had to gather himself before he replied, make certain he didn't accidentally blurt the wrong pronoun. "It mis-" His phone vibrated on the seat and pulled them both. It was Jordan, and he eyed her message with feigned confusion for humorous effect. "Shaw. She says 'Get in here.' What do you think that means?"

"A mysterious detective, it's just so on the nose."

He slid his fingers into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of the gum she'd gifted, popped a piece into his mouth. "Yum, L.A. flavor," he teased, and she rolled her eyes, amused. "Come on, before Mom gives us both a time-out."

As they made their way through the building and toward Lanie Parish's examination room, Rick did his best to talk Kate through what it was she'd be seeing. She'd already been around her first body, in the alley at the scene of her second case with the partners, and that victim's injuries hadn't been pretty, either, but it was never an easy exercise, even under the best of circumstances, so he wanted to make certain she was comfortable.

At the door, he stopped and took her by the arm, tenderly and without any of the awkward baggage he'd been carrying around, checked in one last time. "I know what you said, but if you decide you don't want to be in there, let me know and we'll go, okay? It'd be good for Shaw to get some more practice on her own, anyway. I won't always be there to hold her hand."

Kate couldn't be certain whether it was the caffeine or his fingers wrapped around her that had her humming, but the sensation was warm and welcome. "Rick, I'll be fine, really." She looked into his eyes and saw the depth of his sincerity, despite the levity he'd employed to convey it. "I can do this. I want to do this."

With a nod, he pushed open the door and she stepped past him, the depth of her words far beyond the victim that lay inside.

 **xxxx**

"Well, if it isn't one of my favorites strolling into my exam room on a Tuesday morning," Lanie called across the room as the two approached. Jordan was standing next to the half-covered body, her face buried in the file, and she barely glanced up when she delivered a crack on their lag. "I still think it's so cool you're doing this whole research thing. That last guy was a real a-hole," she said to Kate with a huff at the recollection.

"And here I thought I was your favorite," Rick joked and earned a crook of the head.

"I said one of, Castle. Don't be a baby."

He wandered over to the victim on the table, gave him a once-over. "Tough room, huh, pal?" he asked with rhetorical commiseration.

"His gum hasn't kicked in, yet, this morning," Kate threw in, to a silent salute from Jordan and a guffaw from the doctor.

"You and that gum, Castle, I swear." Lanie came up beside him, Kate hanging back to allow them their space. "You want the goods?" She went on with his signal. "Your boy, here, was beaten to death. Looking at him, that's no surprise, obviously. What I can't tell you is what with. I only know there was something metal involved, because I found these in the mess." She reached behind her and grabbed a clear bag from the tray, handed it to Rick.

"Are they red from the blood?" he asked of the miniscule fragments.

"No, baby, that's rust. And, as your better half is reading there in the report," she said with a wink, "he didn't put up much of a fight. His BAC when I got him was .15, and given his weight, my guess is he probably couldn't have done much, even if he'd known what was coming."

Kate hadn't moved, her eyes fixed on the almost surreal scene, and the world she played in every day felt all at once remarkably inconsequential to her. Yesterday, that man had been out living his life, whatever that meant, and now there he was on a cold table, strangers all around him trying to piece together how and why it'd ended. She found it fiercely real, noble, laudable, that Rick and Jordan spent their days and nights fighting for those that held no place in their own lives, no personal connection other than they, too, occupied a place in their city, and that they did so without demand of recognition.

"Does he have family?" Kate asked amid the chatter of the others and, in fact, without realizing she'd done so.

Jordan had been covertly watching her, attempting to gauge her state of mind during an experience most never found themselves in the middle of. She liked Kate. She liked her because she'd found no posture, no pretense, where she'd initially believed they'd exist. She was curious and hungry, two qualities she revered, both in herself and in others, and she trusted she wasn't there to be anything but better.

"He still had a wallet on him. We're trying to find out," she replied, as Lanie and Rick continued their conversation on the side. "You okay? Kate?"

"Yeah, I'm…yeah." And she was as much as she wasn't.

"Castle, let's go. Lanie, if you find anything else on that metal, call me, and email me a copy of the report." She dropped the hard file on the desk and went for the door, her hand finding Kate's arm as she passed in a touch brief but startling.

With the start, Kate finally broke contact with the man, and turned to see Jordan walk out. She wondered how many people knew the kind of woman Jordan Shaw was-not the cop, the woman-and in that moment, she counted herself lucky to have gotten even a tiny glimpse.

 **xxxx**

They'd been back at the precinct for only a short time before a call came in from their victim's brother, and he'd agreed to speak with them that afternoon, though, in their interaction, Jordan hadn't given him any indication as to what'd happened, only that a face-to-face would be preferable.

Merely for the privacy of it, and not with any indication or suspicion he'd been involved in the murder in any way, she secured Interview One, sent Rick downstairs to retrieve him when he arrived. More often than not, the news they were about to deliver hit hard, and prying eyes never helped ease that.

Kate stood at the glass in observation in wait, as she'd done previously with Rick, assuming what she was set to witness would include both detectives, but that turned out not to be so. When he led the well-dressed, well-groomed man into the room, the two were alone, Jordan surprising Kate with her appearance just a moment later.

"Your not…You're not doing this together?"

Jordan dropped her eyes, noted Kate had already switched on the audio. "I told you there are things he has to say that are worth listening to." She backed to the edge of the desk behind them, sat along its edge and prepared to do just that. "So listen."

Rick was standing also, so Kate had an unobstructed view of nearly the whole of him, and though she'd become increasingly familiar with his body across their time, it still struck her new-softer, more man than cop-and as much as she wanted to focus on the other person in the room, the man whose life was about to change forever, she couldn't pull her attention away.

"The first thing I'm going to tell you," Rick began, "is that this is going to be difficult, and whatever reaction it is you need to have, have it. The second thing I'm going to tell you is that I will do everything I can to help make it better, whether you can walk out of here believing that today or not."

The news of his brother's murder broke the man before her eyes, and Kate occupied his subsequent moments of pain almost as if they were her own. She thought of the examination room, the table, the horror of what someone had left behind, and she was dumbstruck by how they could do it, how Rick and Jordan and all the rest were able to carry around with them the things they saw, they things they had to do.

"He has something in those rooms other cops don't," Jordan said after a considerable spell of quiet, not a direct admission that she lacked in that thing herself, yet with something perceptibly regretful in her voice. "He doesn't know it, but he does."

"What is it?" Kate asked with a palpable wonder.

Jordan moved for the door, turned back before going to give the only answer she had. "Rick Castle," was all she said and with that said it all. "I need to call Lanie. Stay if you want."

So Kate did.

 **xxxx**

Rick hadn't told Kate about it, but he'd hit the gym a few times since their first session, his performance that night, he recalled painfully, more embarrassing than anything else, and as they passed the three-mile mark on their respective machines, he was feeling decidedly better about himself, both in mind and in body.

For a change, they didn't have the room to themselves on that Tuesday night, a couple of rookies hoping to impress tucked against the back wall with the free weights, but the company didn't seem to matter; in fact, each of them was so unknowingly wrapped up in the other, they'd hardly even noticed.

"You good for five?" Kate gently puffed, enviably looking as though she'd just gotten started.

"Oh, yeah, I'm definitely good," he assured her, but there was no definitely about it. It was possible, at best, but he'd made it sound believable enough, and gave himself kudos for the performance. "Are we lifting again after?"

"I was actually thinking about hitting the bag for a bit, tonight, if you don't mind."

The image sent his mind reeling. He'd seen her action on the big screen, but the notion of a live performance conjured all manner of fantasy.

"Sure, I can do some weight stuff while you do that, if the boys in the back will share with the old man."

Kate glanced over, traveled him up and down as he chugged on towards mile four. "You don't look old," she praised. "And your partner says you act like a teenager, so."

"Well," he said, reaching for some relief in a bottle of water, "that's a compliment in…no universe, but I will take that first part, thanks."

She'd been thinking about it since that morning, about whether or not she'd actually ask when the time came, about how it might sound and what he'd think, and she decided to give herself just the last mile to figure it out. Tapping her speed down a few notches and her incline up, she went to work, the work of trying to gather nerve as she climbed, Grady's words in her ears, taunting her. _You want him so bad, you can taste him._ God, she hated how right he was, but she fucking did.

When they hit five, they stopped and stepped off to stretch, their bodies close with the minimal space between the machines, though neither did complain. "So, weights for you and the bag for me, I guess," she said, sounding awkward was all she could think.

"And then maybe a beer?"

Oh, he'd kindly opened the door, and she felt the sweet relief of the breeze.

"Actually, I was thinking you might want to come over to my place for a drink, well, not my place, but the place I'm staying-Grady's place." Not so much of a breeze that all the awkward had blown away, apparently. "He's dying to meet a man in uniform." Rick squinted. "Yes, I told him you don't wear one, and that you're not gay, but this is Grady. He's excited, anyway."

"I guess Grady's place it is then, sure. It'll be a nice change to drink someplace where it doesn't feel like the floor might cave in if you step wrong."

Kate's face lit up with heat on top of heat. "Okay, good, we'll just…and then we'll go."

"Then we'll go," Rick echoed, quietly realizing for the third time in that room with her, he could no longer feel his legs.


	9. Chapter 9

Rick slid ungracefully out of the cab behind Kate when they arrived at Grady's, the evening's forecasted thunderstorm already crackling overhead, and as though he'd emerged to find himself in the midst of some kind of peculiar obstacle course, he ducked and dodged bobbing umbrellas along the sidewalk to catch up to her as she scurried on ahead.

He'd showered quickly after their workout in the gym, but due to the expected weather, Kate had chosen not to, and the khakis and leather boots of his day's work ensemble were now splattered and soaked-a gift of the large puddle at the curb he hadn't seen-and as she stood in the light of the building's doorway in wait, he could practically hear the laughter she was fighting so determinedly to muzzle.

"So, she pays for my cab fare, but will she pay for my dry cleaning bill?" Rick asked in jest once he'd ducked in beside her. His hands immediately went to work brushing free the drops he could, though most of the damage had already been done. "Are you going to let me borrow something of yours so I don't catch my death of a cold in these wet things?"

"Oh, I'm thinking about it," Kate replied with a wicked note, leaning into the door and pushing it open, allowing both inside. "But if you remember," she went on, stepped in close, "she warned you not to change back into those clothes, so, no, she won't be paying for any dry cleaning bills." She twirled on her heels and walked on toward the elevator, left him with a crinkle between his brows. "Come on, I have a mauve pullover that'll work wonders with your tones."

With counterfeit reluctance, he followed her into the car, took a position on the opposite side. For him, as always was Kate, she radiated an effortless beauty-even after three miles and five rounds-its seeming immutability confounding to him like no other, and his want of her had become a sort of pain, one beyond any punishment of muscle and bone an hour in a gym could ever inflict.

"Thank you for the cab ride, by the way. The next trip's on me," he said over the rumble of their slow climb.

"Next trip, huh?" She leaned back, kicked one ankle across the other. "Where are we going?" With an abrupt lurch, the elevator came to a stop before he had opportunity to respond. "Sorry, older building, it does that."

Rick pretended to regain his balance, blew out a breath of relief. "If I'm ever invited back, remind me. I'll say my prayers."

The door opened and Kate snickered. "And you protect this city?" she said, being cheeky.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite movie star. How's that for timing?" came a voice from the landing.

Kate turned and found Grady's neighbor standing there with his tiny, raincoated dog, the sight of which, incidentally, didn't surprise her in the least, knowing the scruffy thing's owner as she did. "Well, if it isn't my favorite curator," she replied back, and the two engaged in a peck of both cheeks. "How was your trip?" As it turned out, he'd been away for the weekend, as she had.

"Too short, of course, but I presented my niece with the autograph and she informed me I'm now her favorite-though only-uncle. Truly, thank you for doing that. It really made her day." Suddenly, the man found Rick, as though he'd just realized someone was there beside her. "And who's this lucky chap?"

"Geez, I'm sorry. Edward, this is Rick, but he likes to be called Chuckles. Chuckles, this is Edward. He's been Grady's neighbor for a long time." She met Rick's eye and laughed with hers. "I'm glad she liked the photo. I was happy to do it."

Edward was rightly confused by the pseudonym, yet he rolled with it like a pro. "Chuckles, it's good to meet you. Any friend of this wonderful creature is a friend of mine." He reached for Kate's hand, kissed it ever so gentlemanly. "I'm afraid I must run and get this one out for her nightly walk. From the looks of things," he said with plain reference to Rick's sodden state, "it's getting a bit ugly. Come on, Bitsy, the deluge awaits." He moved between them and stepped into the elevator.

"Goodnight, you two, and be careful out there. Watch out for those puddles," Kate cautioned, a verbal nudge of the elbow, to be sure.

"We'll do that, won't we, Bitsy? And do effort to keep that one smiling, Chuckles. It'll light up even the darkest nights, such as this." As the door pushed closed, he blew Kate a kiss, and then they were gone.

Without a word, Kate walked the few steps to Grady's door, Rick just behind. "You thought that was funny, didn't you? I'm pretty sure Bitsy thinks I'm a crackpot now, too," he remarked with a huff, though not altogether blind to the humor in it.

"Kinda, yeah," she answered without giving him a glance. "Thirsty?"

He was and he agreed, and he was so much more than that.

 **xxxx**

"It's just so…white," Rick commented when Kate returned with their two glasses of wine in hand. She'd left him in the living room, gone off to find Grady and then to the kitchen, the first an unsuccessful mission, the apartment empty save for the pair, it turned out. "I know I keep saying that, but it's really-"

Kate handed him his drink and parked herself on the sofa, a cushion's distance between them. "White?" she finished with a mocking tone. "I don't really understand it, either, and I know Grady better than most people. He's practically a walking Crayola box-larger than life. I mean, I enjoy the minimalist thing now and again, but he's definitely taken it to an extreme." She surveyed the room like it was new to her, though she'd spent countless hours there, and then came back to Rick. "You should give me Kyra's number. Maybe I can subtly slip it into conversation, and then maybe you try and work some boyfriend magic for a bulk deal from the gallery. Cheers, by the way."

He hadn't spoken with Kyra since she'd gone-from his apartment and maybe, even, his life-and it was the first time in a long time he'd heard her name that it hadn't provoked a bite of guilt. "Cheers." They clinked glasses and each swallowed a sip. "And I can absolutely give you her number, but I'm not sure how much help I'd be at the moment in the negotiating-with-Kyra department."

"In the doghouse again, huh?" she teased.

Rick gave her an icy stare. "Despite your somewhat astute inference as to my character, I think I might be a little bit offended. No, I'm not, thank you very much. There isn't a doghouse for me to be banished to anymore, at least not in Kyra's yard."

Kate had never felt more grateful for the skills of her theatrical trade than in that moment, leaning heavily on them to keep her face from breaking into a grin the size of Texas. "I'm sorry, Rick," she said, and she was. She certainly wished him no sadness. But there was an underlying buzz of exhilaration, too, and it was deafening. "I know how tough breakups can be, believe me."

"Thanks. Sometimes the hard thing is the right thing, though, for whatever the reason."

Their eyes met and held in a silent dance, until her phone whistled and broke the spell. "Grady. He was supposed to be here, but he must've gone out. Do you mind if I…?" She stood and he excused her agreeably. "Hey, where are you?" Rick heard her say as she disappeared back into the kitchen.

"I'm sorry, last minute drinks with my agent who's, apparently, in town for all of five seconds. I couldn't say no. Is the foxy cop there? Tell me everything."

Kate peered over her shoulder with unnecessary prudence. "Yes, _Rick_ is here," she confirmed, purposefully steering from his play, "and there's nothing to tell. We worked out. We're having a drink."

The vibration of an exaggerated snore came blaring through her phone. "Snoooozefest. I swear I just fell asleep for a minute. You have, like, a week or something left there. What the hell are you waiting for?"

"He had a girlfriend," she hissed, each word more deliberate than the last.

" _Had_?" Grady all but shouted into what sounded like a bar packed with people. "As in past tense? As in holy shit. As in I'm staying out very late and you're welcome."

She'd left her glass in the other room, but she badly needed a shot, so she picked up the opened bottle and downed a gulp. "G, I don't even know if he's thought about it or me, but yes, I do still have, like, a week or something with them. I don't want to ruin it and humiliate myself in the process."

"For Christ's sake, K, aside from my mother-bless her goddamned heart-you are the most divine woman on this planet. Of course he's thought about it and you. And he breaks up with his girlfriend _now_ and you think that's a coincidence? Exactly how many drinks have you had?"

 _Not enough,_ she thought, but her head was spinning, and Grady wasn't helping. "I left him alone in the other room. I need to go."

"Now I need more drinks," he panted dramatically. "You know I love you, right? I just want you to be happy. And get some."

Despite his behavior and against her better judgment, Kate echoed his love and then hung up, pulled the band out of her hair, set it free. _No big deal, casual_ , _you're just hanging out_ , she silently attempted to calm herself, and with a deep breath, she went out to the other room.

Rick was up and standing across the way, examining a framed collection of Grady's photographs, the lower quarter of his pants and their goofy puddle pattern bringing a smile. She approached quietly, heard him mumble something she couldn't make out.

"He definitely knows how to have fun," she said as she came up beside him. "Grady's like the sun, not like anybody. And he's sorry about not being here. He, um, something came up at the last minute. He really did want to meet you."

"That's okay, I…" He hadn't looked, hadn't noticed her hair was loose until that second, and the sight filched his words. "We can just, I mean, I can get out of your hair and, just, another time, maybe." Cursing himself for the babbling idiocy, he started to turn away, when her hand grabbed his arm and stopped him. Her tooth tugged at her lip, as her gaze journeyed downward from the ocean of his eyes to his to his mouth, left open ever so slightly as if in dare, and in the face of its tormenting whisper, she came for it.

There was no why, no resistance. There was only surrender, and with restraint unfastened, in clumsy circles they pulled and pushed their way over to the sofa until they were both horizontal, her legs curled around his, selfishly cradling his body just where she wanted it.

"Wait, wait, wait." It took all his might, but Rick pulled back. "The sofa, Kate. My pants are-"

"I don't care. I'll buy him a new one." She cut him off, her hand hooking his neck and drawing him back down.

Those were the last words either spoke until both, as their frenzy and their fervor continued to swell, accidentally spilled to the floor with a thud.

"Shit, Kate, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Rick pushed out in a whisper, because that was all his lungs would allow. "Are you okay?" He settled his hand beneath her head, pressed a soft kiss against her neck.

All she could do was laugh, her fists still clutching the fabric of his shirt. "I'm fine," she managed around the giggles, but barely. When his forehead came to rest at her clavicle, the warm tickle of his breath made her entire body hum. "God, you're really good at that."

"What, ruining beautiful sofas and injuring beautiful women?"

She opened one hand, dragged it up his back to his hair and tugged. "Yeah, that. You must be really fun at parties."

"Good thing I don't get out much. Imagine the damage I could do." He pecked her neck once more, worked a trail over the curve of her jaw to her cheek, to her lips, encouraged them open with the gentle wish of his own and swallowed the moan she released with the pleasure. "Should we get up?" he asked when they broke, and that was when he saw something in her eyes.

"Rick, I want to make sure…I know you and Kyra just-"

"Hey." His thumb brushed across her cheek. "It wasn't _just_ , not for me, and I don't really think it was for her, either. Look, I don't know how much I should say to you right now, or how much I even could say without potentially embarrassing myself, but Kyra and I are over, and for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since the minute I first saw you."

Tracing the curve of his ear with her fingertip, she let it trickle all the way to his lips. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, either. It's so strange," she said under her breath, as though the force of it had only truly hit her as she lay there.

"Okay, so, I know we're doing this kind of out of order, but maybe this weekend you'll let me take you on a proper date, show you some of my New York. You can even wear your hat and sunglasses disguise if you want, so no one'll bother you. For what I'm thinking about, it'll actually work out pretty perfectly."

Kate slid a leg over his as she had before they'd fallen. "You're not going to take me to see your Mets play like shit, are you? If so, get ready to buy me a lot more beer."

"I might be a danger to furniture and film stars, but I'm not cruel. No baseball, no. We will be able to chew gum, though, like the ballplayers do, except without their humiliation."

Her hold on him tightened. "Just making sure. You're not chewing gum now, right?" she asked with unambiguous intent, and he shook his head with a smirk. "That's good to know," she said and angled for his mouth.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: For the few remaining chapters, I'm going to bump up the postings to twice per week, because I'd like the story to be up in full form before the Thanksgiving holiday. I hope those of you still along for the ride are finding enjoyment in the read. As ever, you have my appreciation and my love.**

* * *

Rick's eyelids were deliciously heavy that morning, their attempt at recovery unaided by the hours he'd spent since he arrived at the precinct scanning the collected security video from the night of their current homicide, yet the reminiscence of the events that'd been their weight's maker still had him roused beyond the power of any amount of caffeine he could ingest.

He'd left Grady's place for home somewhere after 2AM, following an evening with Kate spent laughing and talking-and not always with words-and he could still feel his arms wrapped around her, smell her sweetness, hear her whispers. What had happened between them, even in its relative innocence, felt like a dream, an impossible dream, yet the words captured by his phone assured him otherwise, words she'd sent and he'd read countless times since. "Know of any good furniture stores? I suddenly find myself in the market," she'd written with a wink. "I had fun tonight." No, it was very real.

"How the hell did you get saddled with this, Castle?" his captain asked on his way past. "Where's Shaw?"

"Probably off shining her halo." Rick froze the display, reached for his mug with the ensuing glare of discontent that shot his way. "She went out to talk to the brother's wife again. She reread her statement. Something wasn't sitting, I guess. Didn't tell me what."

"You two do actually talk sometimes, right?"

Rick spun in his chair. "I listen, mostly."

"Sure you do," Montgomery quipped. "Anything there so far?"

In both typical and unfortunate fashion, everything they'd managed to gather from the cameras around their crime scene wasn't much, and offered all the visual clarity of a blizzard in the dark. Without commentary, Rick pressed a button and the screen kicked to life, the image speaking for itself. "I still have some stuff to go through from the bank down the street. Can you hear the hope in my voice?"

"Don't be an ass, Castle. Just watch the damn video," he charged and turned to go. "Get your girl in here to help. Show her how much fun the tech world of the NYPD can be."

His girl. How he wished.

"I assume you meant trainee, sir," Rick countered with a tone, "and she's not in until tomorrow."

"Sharing calendars, how sweet," Montgomery needled on his way out, not the first person to do so, Rick couldn't help but note. "Update me, please."

Rick went back to his monitor and his fourth pour of coffee. "I'll give you an update," he muttered, and was left to wonder if he'd really been that obvious.

 **xxxx**

Jordan returned to the 12th early that afternoon, convinced their victim's sister-in-law knew something-and something big-about the murder, but with not much more than her gut to go on, and she found Rick near the end of his review of what they had video-wise, which had amounted to, essentially, zero.

"I put Bennett on her," she said, dragging her hands through her hair, one of her many tells of frustration he'd observed since their pairing.

"She must've given you something to warrant that."

Jordan dropped into the chair next to his in the cramped office, adjusted her piece to her side. "She said her husband was in bed next to her by 9:30PM that night and didn't get up until the alarm clock went off, so, yeah, she gave me bullshit."

Rick watched the counter in the corner of the screen tick up toward the four-hour mark, giving him only moments more. "I'm in bed by 9:30PM sometimes," he commented offhandedly.

"I'm sure your groupie just basks in the thrill of the life you lead, Castle. For an added treat, do you wear your socks to bed, too?"

He reached for his pack of gum and popped two pieces. "You can cut out the groupie shit now, Shaw, okay?" was all he said.

The corners of her mouth inched upward, her spine uncurling as she righted her posture. He didn't say the words, but she sure heard them. "Holy shit, you did it. You actually did it. Our little Ricky Castle finally grew some balls and jumped off the spinning ride."

"Yes, I did it," he confirmed, assuming the dose of bluntness would be the welcome play and promptly shut her up. Jordan never was much for things personal, hers or otherwise. "Now, can we leave my balls and get back to all of the nothing we have on this murder, please? I don't want to talk about this."

"Does she know?"

Right away, Rick understood she meant Kate, and he worried what might follow. "She knows," he responded, but he only gave her the corner of his eye.

But, as quickly as she'd pushed, she pulled back. "I'm going to fill Montgomery in, let him know about Bennett. When this is done, find me. I want to go over everything we don't fucking have."

"Yeah," he said, but she was already gone. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out his phone, opted for a less intrusive text message to Kate over a call. "Just wanted to let you know I am currently chewing gum, in case you had the sudden urge to show up and pull a repeat of last night. With Chuckles it's always safety first. By the way, I would have no complaints about that urge. Hope your day's better than mine."

When the video finally went black, he headed back out into the bullpen to inform his frustrated-and infuriatingly insightful-partner that they'd indeed struck out, but there was a veiled smile in him in spite of it, and it wasn't going away any time soon.

 **xxxx**

Being that it was halfway across town, Rick wasn't sure he'd be able to make it to the studio in time after work, but the subway gods had been kind and he was ever in their debt for it. Kate was out on the mats with her instructor when he arrived, her body in formfitting black, her hair pulled up away from her face, and he hung back in the shadows, watched her with awe.

It wasn't that she was beautiful. That wasn't what held him. It was that she seemed the personification of passion, dedicated to her craft in all its aspects-absorbed in it, not on its fringes, not merely passing through to get to the next. He saw the same in Jordan, truth was, and he knew why he often acted otherwise. It was his insecurity. He wanted to be that thing, too, hoped he was, but he didn't always believe it.

Exercise after exercise, drill after drill, she remained almost feline in her movement, balletic and lithe, even in the face of what was coming at her, which was anything but refined, and through it all, there was her laugh. If he could only have one part of her forever, if forced to choose, Rick was already certain it would be her laugh.

Her partner grabbed her and held on when she threw him an elbow, and when he unexpectedly leaned in for her ear, tipped her off to their audience, she looked over her shoulder and found Rick. Not wishing to interrupt or intrude, he simply lifted a hand in greeting, and she smiled in return before finishing what she'd started, dropping a foot behind the man and sending him tumbling backward to the floor.

She clapped in her amusement, helped him up though he didn't require it, and they went on, both unruffled by the extra set of eyes. Rick did check his phone a couple of times in his wait, found nothing from Shaw or anyone else, but he rarely looked away from Kate, and unapologetically so.

The pair broke a short time later, hugged one another, said their goodbyes, and then she made her way over to Rick like a girl at a school dance, not tentative but with a quiet hope. "I'm happy you came," she said, and his heart cracked open a tiny bit wider. "I didn't think you would."

He wanted to kiss her softly, to sample the salt of her effort, but he hesitated in the newness of it all. "I got in early this morning. Didn't get much sleep, you know? I mean, I did have to ditch Shaw in the middle of a wild shootout with some bad guys to get here, but she can handle herself. She'll fill me in tomorrow." A bead of perspiration started down her cheek and he brushed it away, let it dwell on his fingertip.

"Yeah, well, she doesn't have one of those pussy pistols like yours, so I'm sure she was fine." She giggled at the recollection of the moniker Jordan had once used, and at Rick's face when she resurrected it. "I'm sorry you had a hard day," she said, and not that he felt proud of himself for it because the comparison was anything but fair, but he couldn't remember a recent time when Kyra had offered him any such tenderness.

"Would I sound like a sappy old fool if I said seeing you tonight made me forget all of it? If so I won't say it."

Kate took a step closer, lessened the distance between them to near none at all. "I already told you. You're not old," she said with smile most pleased at her own wit, and he flashed her a goofy face. "So, do I have to ask you to kiss me hello or are you going to finally realize that's what I want you to do on your own?"

He cupped her cheek, curled his arm behind her back. "Give a guy a break, huh? He had a hard day," he said wryly, and then gave her what they both wanted.

 **xxxx**

Incredible the extent to which the passage of twelve hours could change things.

Rick didn't utter a word the entire ride back, and Jordan allowed him that, but not for the usual reason-because she often preferred it when his lips weren't moving-rather because she'd never been where he'd just come from, and whatever it was he needed in the aftermath of that awful place, that was absolutely what she was prepared to give.

A call had come that morning-a bad call. Their victim's sister-in-law, the woman who'd raised Jordan's suspicion enough to have eyes assigned to her, had phoned hysterical. Her husband had threatened all sorts of unspeakable things, she'd said. His guilt over what he'd done to his own brother had been eating him alive, and he had one foot off the emotional cliff.

He'd confessed it all to her-the fight out at the site, the old pile of rusted scrap metal and the weapon of death he'd plucked from it, the drive with the body from point A to point B in the black of night-and she'd swallowed it all for him, for love, for their family, for fear. But that morning he'd finally snapped, after countless hours without sleep, after he could take no more of the pain of his burden, and she'd found way to call for help.

Rick had been right there in the same room when he'd done it, almost as near to him as he'd been in Interrogation days before when he'd informed him of the discovery of his brother's body. He'd witnessed the man break twice, once emotionally and once physically, and though the former had turned out to be largely a performance, the latter had been anything but. With one shot to his own head, he'd joined his brother on the 12th's list of victims for the week, and left Rick without words.

 **xxxx**

He talked briefly with Montgomery upon their return, typed up his report right away so he could get it all down while the images and the sounds were still fresh-too fresh-and then he informed Jordan he was going downstairs, and she knew exactly where and why. She did it, too. She fled there sometimes, to try not to think, to try and feel in control of something, though control was so often an illusion. The range was good for that, even if only temporarily.

Due to scheduled production meetings, Kate didn't arrive until that afternoon, and she found Jordan at her desk, her partner absent from his. "Hey," she said cautiously, already having picked up on a vibe. "Is everything okay?"

"Rough morning," Jordan answered without commentary. When she dipped back into her paperwork, Kate scanned the room but didn't see Rick anywhere. "He had a rougher one." Kate hadn't realized she'd been caught in her sweep, but she had. "He's downstairs. Do you remember where the range is?"

Kate set her bag down, pushed it under his desk with her foot. "I can find it, yeah." She had no idea what was going on, but it was clear to her she'd walked into something, and because their evidence board was glistening white again, that something had to be case-related. "If he's…I don't want to-"

"I'll call the desk, tell them you're coming down," Jordan interrupted, without the uncertainty in her voice that Kate's suddenly carried. "Just let him…" Her thought trailed off, but she'd already given enough, at least enough to convey what it was she might find.

Kate got back into the elevator and headed downstairs, took a right instead of a left when it opened but swiftly corrected course. At Jordan's request, she was met by an officer in uniform as she walked the hallway to the range, and he provided what was required in order for her to safely enter. Once inside, he led her down the line, past two other active lanes, until they found Rick, and then he left her.

It wasn't until he'd emptied three more clips that he pulled off his gear and turned to find her there, and instead of the light that always greeted her, there was something dark in its place.

"When did you get here?"

"A little while ago. I was upstairs. I saw Jordan." Rick stepped around her, tossed his glasses and muffs on the table and left them. "I saw your last few rounds." She wanted to tease him, to try and win a smile, but knew she shouldn't. "I don't want to be in your way. Maybe I should just go back up."

"No, it's fine. I'm done." She had only her glasses left on and he stripped her of those, dropped her things on the table next to his. With a hand at her back, he guided her out, but toward the stairwell instead of the elevator. "Do you mind walking up?"

She didn't, so they did. They were alone there, and he was palpably quiet, and at some point between floors, he slid a hand around hers and stopped their climb. The fingers of his free hand were wrapped around the metal railing, and Kate watched his knuckles turn white as he clutched it tighter and tighter.

"It was like he didn't even fucking hear me, like I wasn't standing right in front of him." She remembered what Jordan had told her, and she just let him be. "I kept telling him to stop and breathe for a minute, for one goddamned minute, but he wouldn't."

Anger. There were other things, too, because she could see them, hear them in his eyes, but the anger was profound, and it seemed to her he'd saved much of it for himself. "I don't know what happened this morning, Rick, and I don't need you to tell me, okay, not right now." She squeezed his hand tight. "Whatever you need from me, though, _if_ there's something you need from me, I'm here."

He looked into her eyes, swam in their pools of green for a long moment and then leaned in, pressed his lips to her forehead in gratitude unspoken. "Montgomery told me to stay away tomorrow, clear my head. I know it won't help you with the show or with everything you're supposed to be doing, but do you-"

"Yes," Kate replied before he'd even gotten all the words out, but the rest of them didn't matter. She would've done anything he'd asked.


	11. Chapter 11

In his t-shirt, shorts, and bare feet, Rick stood at the front door of his building, the subway station Kate would emerge from just a few blocks away. He'd slept late-10AM now seemed to roughly equate to the 1PM of his adolescence-carried his coffee in a travel cup into the shower with him, thrown on the first clothes he'd opened the drawer to, to ensure he'd make it downstairs in time for her planned arrival.

They'd talked on the phone until after midnight, the hell of his day left without mention by both, and the morning found him returning to himself, yet grateful Montgomery had insisted upon the hours away. There would be benefit gained from discussion and reflection he'd been told by his partner, as had been her past experience with events challenging though not equal, and he wasn't adverse to the recommendation, but all he wanted on that day, a mere twenty-four hours removed from it, was to be with Kate, and as a man, not a cop.

He hadn't collected his mail in three days, and as he sorted through it, weeded out the unwanted elements over the trash can beside his box, there came a tap at the glass, Kate's eyes, hidden behind her sunglasses, peeping at him through the door.

Rick tucked the remaining stack of envelopes into the front of his shorts and opened for her, kissed her in the otherwise-unoccupied lobby like they'd been apart for years, not hours. "Better than breakfast," he said when they broke, and his stomach growled, as if begging to differ.

Sliding a hand into the bag at her hip, she pulled out a small one, one he recognized well. "This doesn't mean I support your habit. As a first-time guest, I didn't want to come empty-handed. My mother taught me better than that." She presented it, and he practically jumped with excitement. "There's an Old Fashioned and a Blueberry. I hope that's okay."

He kissed her again, the second swift but soft. "It's exactly what I wanted, thank you. Come upstairs, I need another cup of coffee to enjoy these properly. Important things have important rules."

"My guess is you might need some shoes, too, if we're actually going to go anywhere," she said, finally taking full notice of his ensemble's oddities.

"Oh, we're absolutely going somewhere." He noted her prolonged scrutiny, gave himself a look. "How about the Zeppelin t-shirt? Can I keep that on, at least?"

"Well, since I'm not your mother, I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't wear, but I will say, as me, as a woman, the Zeppelin is pretty fuckin' hot."

Rick smiled, grabbed her hand. "Okay, then _maybe_ we're going somewhere," he joked, and they headed up to the apartment.

 **xxxx**

"Did you get any sleep?" she asked, around the direct question she still felt she shouldn't. He carried two mugs over to the small dining table he couldn't recall the last time he'd actually used, sat in the chair across from her. "I think I was out two minutes after we hung up."

Rick dug into her gifted bag and plated his doughnuts, dismissed the apple he'd placed in front of her with a twitch of his brow. "I was up and down, but mostly down, and the extra time this morning was something I could definitely get used to. Remind me to buy lottery tickets later." Kate took a bite of her Granny Smith and chewed it snobbishly. "I stole that from Shaw, by the way. She looked all over the place for it."

"A thief is better than a liar," she replied and washed down the tart fruit with a sip of coffee. "Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?"

Kate Beckett was sitting in his apartment, and it truly hit him only then. It'd been but a dream days ago-a last thought in the dark, a first thought in the light-and now she was close enough to touch, and what's more, he could and he had. He'd expected nothing and had been bestowed riches, and the disproportion in his favor of that transaction was something he intended to not take for granted.

"I'm looking at you like this because you're the most beautiful accessory-after-the-fact I've ever seen, and you're here with me right now, and I still don't have any idea how the hell that happened, but I know it feels good."

One hand found his knee beneath the table as she brought her mug to her lips with the other. "I don't either, but maybe that's okay. Maybe we're supposed to figure it out together." Grady had said that to her, and she'd been surprised to find the romance in his thesis more powerful than her mystification. "Whatever that means," she added with a shrug.

Rick finished off his Old Fashioned with a final dunk into his coffee, wiped his mouth of its remnants. "I try to believe there's a higher something out there, something that has answers to the whys, especially with the things I have to see every day, but…" He paused as the horrible images of the previous morning floated across his mind, and Kate intuited that. "But it isn't always easy." He set his hand on top of hers. "I like your idea."

"So," she said after an interlude passed in his eyes, "are you going to tell me where we're going? I decided against the hat part of the disguise, but I did wear the sunglasses, even though it looked like it was going to pour on my way over here."

"It wouldn't dare, and, yeah, I was going to make fun of you when you first got here, actually, but I thought it might ruin my chances at that kiss, so I played it cool. I'd say my restraint definitely paid off."

Kate ogled him over her mug's rim. "For both of us," she said assuredly. "Expect a lot more reward."

"This day is so much better than the last one," he muttered. "Here's what we'll do. I'll finish my nutritious breakfast. You'll finish eating the evidence of my crime. I'll go change my clothes-not my t-shirt, though," he said with a wink, "and then I'll tell you where we're going. Mystery can be quite sexy, you know."

Kate surely agreed that morning.

 **xxxx**

His place wasn't really large enough to explore, so he told her to make herself comfortable on the couch while he went to finish getting ready. They weren't on a particular schedule, didn't have to be anywhere at a specific time, but he'd checked the hourly weather on his phone, and the chance for rain by the afternoon was far greater than the zero percent he'd hoped for, so trying to get out while they could still enjoy their destination meant they were likely up against the clock.

He opted not to shave, and to brush his teeth for the second time, having pulled off his shirt to avoid the splatter of toothpaste that always seemed to accompany the aging electronic gadget he still used in spite of its years, and he laid a pair of jeans out on the bed to pull on in place of the ugly plaid shorts he'd removed and dropped straight into the bathroom trash can. He could think of no good reason at all as to why he still had them.

From the couch, Kate could hear the sound of Mick Jagger's voice playing over the stream of the water, unmistakable, though she couldn't recall the name of the song, and it pulled her to his bedroom like the Pied Piper's instrument. She leaned against the doorframe, gently hummed the ballad's sweet melody when its words didn't readily come, until Rick emerged from the bathroom and found her there.

Dressed now only in his boxers, he flinched with the surprise, finished dabbing the moisture from his mouth as she looked on. "Sorry, you scared me." He tossed the hand towel onto the bureau, but remained where he stood. "My second brush this morning," he shared almost proud. "I'm a sucker for doughnuts _and_ oral hygiene."

Kate couldn't remember how many times he'd used the word beautiful in her honor, but it was equally applicable to him, and though she'd felt that the moment they'd met-and every moment since-nothing had prepared her for the extent of the evidence before her.

She labored for a response, and managed only a feeble "the Stones," despite her brain's persisting eruption of words, and felt her cheeks flush pink with embarrassment or desire, she wasn't sure which.

"Ever seen them live?" he asked like they were chatting over eggs, like he wasn't ruining her with his exposed angles and lines. "If not, you should go when they hit L.A. next. You won't believe they're still doing what they're still doing."

Los Angeles. That was where she lived, and in little more than a week, that was where she'd be returning. Rick didn't, though, and he wouldn't be, and from that shot of reality, there in that unanticipated encounter in his Friday-morning bedroom, came a vivid throb of sadness, one she couldn't possibly have foreseen just weeks before.

When he moved for the bed, Kate did likewise, without a second's reluctance. There had been no decision to be made. She hadn't wondered or wavered, she'd simply followed her body's impulse, and when they met, when she curled her fingers around his, she was certain it'd been the right one.

"I don't want to go yet," she told him. "Can we stay here for a little while?"

Rick stroked her cheek. "The only thing I wanted to do today was spend time with you. I've already gotten my wish. Let me put some half-normal clothes on and then we can do whatever you want."

It was her fault. She hadn't been clear. That wasn't it. "No, don't, that's not what I want."

He glanced over his shoulder toward the bathroom. "Well, I already threw away those awful shorts, so I can't-"

Kate stifled a smile. "Yes, they were awful, but, Rick, I don't care about the shorts. When I asked if we could stay here, I meant _here_." She eyed his bed, still rumpled from his sleep. "You won't need any clothes for that."

He blinked hard, because in the immediate wake of her suggestion, his eyelids were the only part of him that would move. "I'm awake, right? I'm sorry, you do look incredibly real to me right now, but I have to ask." Instead of words, she used her lips, her tongue, in deliberate and persuasive form, and with her answer, he was left with no lingering doubt. "That was definitely a persuasive answer."

"So…?" she said, her fingers in his hair, their mouths painfully close.

Rick jerked away suddenly, threw himself onto the bed, and pushed back against the pillows. "So, I'm going to be wearing that Zeppelin shirt under my clothes at work all week next week. Get in here."

 **xxxx**

He crawled his way down the length of her body, sprinkled a trail of delicate kisses from her breast to the only piece of clothing that remained between them and hooked his fingers around its fabric at her hips. "Your skin does taste like vanilla," he whispered, like it was intended to be a secret. "I wondered if it would."

In his rush to meet her arrival, he hadn't pulled the window's blinds, but with the bedroom door open to the rest of the apartment, Kate could see him without strain, see his expression of satisfaction with the confirmation.

"Did you really think about that?" He tickled the satin down her legs and freed her bare as she spoke, smiled a wicked smile. She didn't have to tell him. She didn't have to ask. It was like he already knew what her body craved when his thumb found her and set her nerves afire with its taunting circles, its touch like a feather. "Fuck. Rick." The words escaped her in a sigh, her swirl of intoxication rendering them barely coherent, which only served to escalate his arousal.

"More than I should have." He recollected both Shaw's and Montgomery's comments with a smirk. "Poker is not the game for me, it seems." Needing more of her, he halted his delicate exploration, wriggled his body flat between her thighs so his tongue could play, too. "Maybe I should just stick to this," he said, and after one slow sweep, her fingers fisted his hair in silent plea, and he ardently obliged.

When Kate's muscles could no longer contain their suppressed energy, her hips began to move with his stroke, commanding speed, requisitioning pressure, and receiving his gift of both, she could no longer communicate with anything but the sounds his tongue induced, yet when she granted herself surrender to the ecstasy seconds later, his name filled the silence of the room around them.

Immediately, Rick came for her mouth. "I could do that all day." She reached between them and took him in hand and he nearly bit her lip. His sampling of her had made him achingly hard, and he longed to feel her heat around him. He kissed her once more, deep and thorough. "Okay, fuck, give me one…I need to…" Pawing at the nightstand's drawer, he finally managed it open and reached inside. "I told you. With Chuckles it's safety first." Pushing up onto his knees, he bit at the condom's wrapper, tore the top off. "Impressed?" he said humorously and spit the tiny piece aside.

She assured him she was, but it wasn't his teeth that'd won her admiration. "I want to do it," she said, and he relinquished it without argument, her fingers gliding it over his length without their eyes ever breaking contact.

He hovered over her, one hand firm in hers above the pillows, the other tracing a serpentine path across her nipple while she prepared to take him in. "You're so beautiful, sometimes I can hardly breathe when I'm around you." All at once he felt warmth, and the most exquisite throb. "So beautiful," he echoed, the hum in his throat and her gasp colliding, sparking a desperation for motion.

He dove into her again and again and she arched into each thrust, her legs locked around his hips, allowing him deep, and when she sensed he'd neared the apex of his climb, she put her fingers to work and helped herself ready for a shared descent back to Earth.

"Look at me," she urged him from the edge, "I want to see you," and when their eyes met, they both let go, as though that was all they'd been waiting for.

Rick fell into the empty space beside her and rolled onto his back, let an expletive befitting his pleasure trickle from his lips. "That was incredible. Wait," he perched himself on his elbow. "Was that incredible? You don't need to grade my paper or anything, I just want to make sure-"

Kate angled up and stole a kiss. "I thought it would've been pretty easy to tell, but next time I'll try to make it more obvious, so you don't have to ask."

"I stopped hearing words at 'next time.' I'll be honest with you." She giggled and he curled his arm around her belly, settled his head above her heart. For a brief time, as they floated toward calm, neither spoke at all, but when he finally did, his acknowledgment wasn't easy for either of them. "You're leaving in a week."

Her eyes drifted closed. "I know."


	12. Chapter 12

Without warning, Rick grabbed Kate by the hips and hauled her into his body. It was his second ride up in Grady's elevator, now as a guest for Sunday brunch, and he well remembered the first, not only for the fantasy fulfilled it had ultimately led to, but for its rather pronounced jolt of a launch, which he'd realized he could turn around and use to his desirous advantage.

"What are you doing?" she asked, though she couldn't fight his hold, standing practically limp in his arms by power of his freshly-soaped skin as it mingled with the linen of his laundered shirt. "God, you smell good." It was barely a whisper, and inadvertent at that, but, as she'd come to learn about him, Rick was never one to let a compliment of any kind simply slide by.

"Stop flirting. We don't have time for you to have your way with me. There are only three floors." He slipped his fingers into the back pockets of her jeans and squeezed. "I missed you yesterday," he told her when she angled her chin up to meet his gaze, "especially after…"

The elevator halted abruptly and the doors opened. "I missed you, too," she said and pushed up for his lips. "I was just so exhausted when I got back here last night. I'm sorry."

She'd had to spend her Saturday working, with her time in New York rapidly drawing to an end, and they hadn't been able to see each other after their Friday of sanctioned hooky spent first in bed and then out at Coney Island dodging the rain, a day that'd complicated her forthcoming departure to a degree neither had yet fully realized.

They stepped out of the car hand in hand, moved for Grady's door. "You don't have to be sorry. I know your schedule can't just magically clear because you've experienced the pleasure of my naked body. You need to sleep sometimes. I understand." He'd delivered it with a straight face, but the smile was in his words. "Thanks for coming down to get me, by the way. The service in this building is excellent."

"You did it for me. Besides, I'm starving, and I felt like having a little something before breakfast," she said before seizing his mouth in a fiery kiss. "If I'd done that in front of Grady, I would've needed more than the two bottles of champagne he bought for the mimosas to deal with him." With her thumb, she swept his lip dry where she'd left her mark. "I told him he has to behave, but he has very selective hearing. You two will probably get along great," she teased.

"So, what, it's like full-on Shaw One and Shaw Two, now? How did I get so lucky?"

"Play your cards right, maybe you'll get lucky later, too," she hinted and dragged his tingling body inside.

 **xxxx**

Grady had overdone it, but he didn't care, Kate wasn't surprised, and Rick was merely along for the ride. They'd finished introductions and poured the coffee, gathered around the table to eat, and there, perched between the man who knew her best and the man who'd surprised her most, Kate was happy.

"K said you're an art man, Rick. I am, too. Can't get enough of it. Art, art, art." Rick and Kate shared a quick snap of a look, because of their earlier night there together, because all evidence screamed the contrary. "Yeah, yeah, I know," Grady went on with a swish of his hand, noting their reaction. "My walls-my very expensive walls-deserve only the best, so until this one," he said, pausing to pinch Kate on the arm, "finally agrees to send me a creation of hers, boring as vanilla they shall remain."

With the association, Rick thought instantly of her skin on his tongue, swallowed a smile with his coffee. "I haven't seen any of her creations, yet, but if they're anything like everything else she does, I'm sure they'll be worth the wait."

Grady reached down and whipped out his phone, and Kate blushed at the sight. "G, you don't have to-"

"Feast your bewitching blues on that, Officer Rick." There on the screen was one of her pieces, and the most striking thing about it was that in addition to being a painting by her, it also appeared to be a painting of her. "She hates it when I do this, but she loves me so much I can usually get away with it."

"Lucky man," Rick replied and then promptly wondered if the implicit sentiment was too much. "Is this you?" He couldn't tear himself away from it, not even to ask.

Kate nodded. "It was then." It'd been a difficult time. She'd been hurt by someone-not physically, but there were bruises-and she'd wanted to know how her heart saw her in the aftermath. Her brushes always called truth out of her, and she respected them for it, even when the truth wasn't pretty. "Okay, can we, maybe, eat something now? G, please?"

Rick relinquished the phone, though he could've stared at it for hours. "I'm ready whenever you guys are, and you'll be happy to know I resisted the urge to stop at Dunkin' on the way here, so I'm on empty."

"And he was so perfect up until this point," Grady mocked with a sigh. "If he wears his uniform next time, I'm sure I can forget all about it."

"Food, G." Rick started to get up, but Kate hooked his arm. "He can get it," she said with a grin, and Grady turned for the kitchen with the makings of a pout.

Rick pushed back against his chair, leaned in with the hope she'd meet him halfway. "Whatever the story behind that painting was, it was beautiful. I'm glad I'm here with you now, though." She touched his cheek, kissed him just as Grady came back into the room with a serving tray in his hands.

"Now I see why she wanted me to go alone. Can't say as I blame her," he said with a wistful puff. "I swear the two of you, like this, makes me happier than a Real Housewives brawl. Who wants a bagel and schmear?"

Rick felt amused, though he wasn't sure why. "G's obsessed with reality TV," Kate explained with a tone. "Whenever he says something I don't understand I assume that's what it's about." She reached for a half with sesame seeds, tore off a bite. "It happens a lot."

"I'm just saying you're as adorable as Ryan Gosling with kittens, and whenever the wedding plans commence, please remember I look fabulous in lavender. Rick, bagel? The quiche is almost ready, also. It's to die for. Save room."

And there it was: Grady's big mouth. Kate had known. She'd said as much. She'd told him he couldn't be trusted to keep it shut and he'd sworn otherwise, and she had no one to blame but herself.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" she asked as Rick looked on, his amusement in her exasperation cloaked by his mug. "Shut up and eat your schmear, G."

He drew a knife exaggeratedly across his pumpernickel and coated it. "Well excuse me for loving love, Katherine. Excuse me for being happy to see you happy." Kate narrowed her eyes. "Oh, do not give me that face, honey. You are and you know it." Then he turned to Rick. "Whatever you've done-I won't ask over breakfast because I am a civilized man-I thank you for it. It has been far too long."

The timer on the stove began to beep in the background and Grady pushed back from the table again. "Why don't I go get that," Rick suggested and hopped up before anyone could stop him.

"Oven mitt's on the counter," Grady hollered. "That last asshole wouldn't have offered to get the quiche out of the oven or anywhere else," he told Kate once he'd gone. "I just like him, I'm sorry. I got carried away. I love you, and this is exciting for me. You know what happens when I get excited."

"You pick out my wedding colors?" Kate responded with a playful grumble. "Just cool it some, okay? I like him, too, but this is really new and I don't know what's-" Rick came back into the room and she curbed her thought.

"Should I…Do you want me to go back in there?"

Kate smiled softly at Grady. "No way, bring that thing over here. We were just saying how hungry we are."

"And thirsty-this brunch needs some booze. I'll pour the mimosas, be right back."

She kissed Rick once more when he sat, because Grady was right. It had been too long.

 **xxxx**

"Where the hell you been, Hotshot?" Mick called out to Jordan from behind the bar. "It's good to see your face in color for a change. Oh, and would you look who came back. Ditched Artsy-Fartsy, I see." Kate flashed him a smile, which he reciprocated tenfold. "I like a smart woman. A Beam and a Sam Adams, yeah?" Despite his years, Mick still never forgot a face or a drink.

The two wandered toward the end of the bar, away from the scattered few off-shifts already settled there, on a slow night by all accounts, which both rather appreciated. They toasted without a word when Mick delivered and returned to his post, Jordan still in the dark about why it was Kate had extended the invitation to begin with.

"Not that I don't appreciate a fine whiskey on a Wednesday, Kate, but is there something you need?"

Even after a month spent in her company, Jordan still managed to inspire a pinch of nervousness in Kate, a shyness in moments when the two were alone. It wasn't anything she'd done intentionally, of course, but in the way a student might wish to impress a beloved teacher, so too did Kate, that ambition a byproduct of her sincere esteem.

"Need? No. Sorry, no," she answered with a flush of embarrassment. "I didn't mean for this to be some mysterious thing. I just, I wanted you to know how much I've appreciated your help and your guidance through this process. I know you didn't want to do it, and I'm sorry you had to-both you and Rick. If it's any consolation at all, though, I learned a lot from you, and I promise I'll try my best to honor what it is you do every day and to do it in a way the NYPD can be proud of."

"It wasn't entirely painful," Jordan deadpanned on the other side of a deliberate pause. "And despite my job-instilled inclination towards the contrary, I believe you. I'm sure Castle does, too. Thanks for not inviting him, by the way. I can actually hear myself think." They turned to one another, shared a chuckle. "I'm half expecting to hear he's applying to the LAPD, honestly."

Kate swallowed a hasty gulp of her beer that stung when she sent it down her throat. "Why would he do that?" she all but coughed out.

With a sidelong glance, Jordan tipped back her glass. "You're not a dumb woman, Kate. Neither am I. Let's not pretend we are. My partner is skilled at many things, but subtlety isn't one of them, no matter how much he chooses to believe otherwise, and I've seen his…whatever with you since day one. I'm no Kreskin, but I'm pretty sure we all have."

Kate's head was spinning, probably beyond what all the booze in the place could ever manage, she imagined. "It's not…We're not-"

"Relax, Kate, you're not sitting in the box. I didn't ask any questions. You're an adult. Castle's an adult at least once every couple of weeks. Whatever you are or aren't, be it. There isn't time for much else, and it's a lot easier than fighting it." Kate sat beside her silent, her fingers busy doing what they always did, picking at the label of her bottle. "He's a good fucking man, Kate." Downing what was left, Jordan pushed off her stool and slid her jacket back on. "But don't take my word for it. Investigate," she encouraged cleverly. "I need to go. Thanks for the drink, and for the promise."

"Don't be a stranger, Hotshot," Mick said as Jordan walked by him for the door.

"Fix your damn goddamned floors, Mick," she responded without taking a beat.

He came down the line, stopped in front of Kate and leaned over the bar. "How the hell those two are partners, I'll never know."

Kate understood, though. To her it made complete sense.

 **xxxx**

She hadn't planned on going over there, and Rick wasn't expecting her, but he was all she could think about, even as her cab made its way toward home from the bar, so she'd jumped out and ducked into the subway, instead, headed east.

"The Mets are winning," her text message sent from the sidewalk in front of his building read. "Are you a happy detective?"

It took a couple of minutes, but a response finally came. "I'd be a happier one if you didn't ditch me at the precinct. And for Mick's? My heart. That's our place."

Her face lit up in a grin, sparked more by the recollection of his earlier groaning or by the sappy sentiment, she wasn't certain, but she set her fingers to a reply. "So buzz me in. I'll try to make it up to you." Within but a second, it seemed, the door rattled and she went inside, found Rick leaping out of the stairwell into the lobby. "Guess our time in the gym's been effective." She dropped her phone into her bag and approached, tugged him in by his tee. "Mick's is our place, huh?"

"Well, I'm open to other suggestions, of course. You want to come up and...make a list?" he asked suggestively.

Kate pushed her arms around his waist, locked her fingers at his back. "I mean, I did just come all the way out here, and I was kinda hoping we could just make out, but I guess we can do your thing, if that's what you really want."

His apartment door was barely shut before they were on each other, her bag dropped to the floor along with the shirt she'd yanked frenziedly over his head. The ballgame was on in the background, the crowd seemingly cheering them on in their enterprise as they fumbled for the sofa, and Kate couldn't help but giggle as she caught sight of the score when Rick nudged her playfully down onto the cushions.

"They're losing now? They were just-" He nipped at her neck, apologized to the spot with a tickle of his tongue, and she lost her words.

"Mets," he panted, the only explanation required. "I was thinking about you." He captured her mouth, open and hungry. "About this. God, I'm going to miss this." Her whole body softened beneath him, almost like a switch had been thrown, and he recognized it immediately. "Hey, what's wrong? Did I do something? Did I hurt you?"

He hadn't, but there was definitely pain, pain with every thought of not seeing him, of not being close to him, and of there not being anything she could do to change it.

"I am, too," she whispered and wrapped herself around him.


	13. Chapter 13

Something had been off with Rick all morning, Kate's last as his and Jordan's shadow, and though she hadn't known what it was, she'd sensed it right away. He'd shown up late, without a shave, without a smile or a wisecrack, his words few and sharp, and without having had the opportunity to get him alone before the call about the body had come in, the only things she'd been able to do about it were wonder and worry.

"Some going-away present," Jordan dropped in Kate's ear from the doorway, their crime scene inside a snapshot of utter savagery. "Don't go in. You don't need to see the rest."

Kate acknowledged the admonition, appreciated the implicit concern, but whatever else was in that bedroom didn't matter, because Rick was the only thing she could see. Not even its white walls, splattered floor to ceiling with the crimson of murder, could pull her away. Against probability, beyond understanding, yet without doubt, he had become a polestar, a place from which her mind and body had come to draw unbounded comfort and pleasure, yet in thirty-one hours, she would be on an airplane home, alone.

An ache lived inside of her now, one born of the inescapable acceptance of the little time that remained, and never before had she felt anything like it, nor did she imagine, if asked, she would be able to convey its sensation, but as she stood there watching him, its throb was sturdy and unyielding, much like his focus.

"Maybe if it talks to him, he'll snap out of his pissy mood," Jordan commented further, exiting the room after a confab with Lanie about the victim. "Hey, Cooper," she hollered into the small crowd behind them, "where's Simms?"

Rick finally straightened from his crouch and came walking over, gave Jordan a flat look, Kate not much more. "Simms and Cole are knocking on doors," he told her. "I'm going downstairs." He left without another word.

"So much for the mood," Jordan noted as she dialed Simms. "When you're done with the sweep," she said when he answered, "call me. We're going back to the house." Lanie, busy giving her team instructions over the body, got only a hand to signal their departure, and offered the same. "Let's go, before he decides to take the car and leave us here."

 **xxxx**

Montgomery pulled Kate into his office for their final tête-à-tête shortly after they'd all returned to the precinct, the partners left to gather whatever preliminary information they could on their victim, Rick's virtual silence still lingering following the ride back.

"There's a prior for possession and a DUI from '09," Jordan announced around her computer screen, but the share elicited no response. "If I'm doing this alone, fine, but could you at least let me know so I don't waste my goddamned time talking to a wall."

Rick's eyes found Kate through the office glass across the bullpen but didn't settle. They wanted to, but he wouldn't let them. "What else is it you'd like me to do, Jordan? I'm here. I'm working. I heard you." There was a weight bearing down on him, that of Kate's looming departure, one grueling in its haul, and he'd woken with it strapped to his back and to his heart. "Can I maybe have one day without this shit from you?"

"Grow up, Rick," she snapped. "You're the one dragging your personal crap in here. Is this how it's going to be when she's gone, too?"

He pushed angrily from his desk, went off for the break room. She always saw, always fucking knew, and she always threw it in his face that she did. Standing there in front of the coffee machine, he could see Kate in her last meeting before the end, and he wanted to scream until all the glass in the place shattered into a million pieces from the force of his heartache.

 _How did you let it happen?_ a voice inside rebuked him. _How, when you knew you couldn't keep her?_ But he already knew. He was looking right at the answer-right at every answer. There was no how. There was no avoidance. The simple arrival of her in his world had ensured it, and now there was no going back.

"I just heard today's Kate's last day." Ellison had come into the room after him, though without being noticed. "It's been pretty fun having her around, huh?" he said with a note of melancholy. Rick glanced over his shoulder, acknowledged the man's presence, but had no reply he cared to offer. "At least we'll have the show to watch, I guess."

Rick had tasted her lips, touched her naked skin, fallen asleep in her arms. As if a fucking TV show could ever be adequate consolation for the loss of any of it.

"Yeah," he said finally, just so Ellison would take his idiotic puppy-dog crush and go.

 **xxxx**

Kate's text message buzzed his phone just after 6PM, after Rick's head had been pounding for the better part of three hours, his entire day gone by without a morsel of food save for the pack of gum he'd opened that morning and nearly polished off. She'd left the 12th hours before for a final session with her trainer at the studio, the plan to meet at Rick's apartment sometime afterward for a meal he'd, the day before, insisted upon preparing.

He was already on his way home, having ditched Jordan early, but with the intention of putting in some weekend hours to make up for it-not that she'd come out and condemned his exit, or that she had to with the scowl she'd given him. "Whenever, I'm at the store," he typed back coolly from the check-out line, because the truth was, as much as he longed for the time alone with her, he dreaded the night ahead and the finality it would bring.

An hour later she'd arrived, having not showered before she'd come, wanting just to get there, to be there with him, so he'd offered his, left out his now famous Zeppelin t-shirt for her to slide into when she was done, which she'd quietly found more than a little bit sexy.

Her skin warm and wrapped in a piece of him, she emerged from the bedroom to find him at the stove, the modest table against the wall set for two. "Thank you for this," she said of the cotton hanging seductively off of one of her shoulders with its size. "It smells like you. That's my favorite part."

Rick remained stoic, fixed on his task, his back all he gave, but his legs grew unsteady beneath him with his imagined picture of her. "I bought red and white. They're on the table, if you want." He picked up a spoon and pushed the vegetables around the pan as if they mattered, as if any of it mattered, and that's when he felt her close in.

"I want you to tell me what's wrong, Rick. I want to know why you've barely said two words to me today-to anyone-and why you won't even look at me. Did I do something?"

She had done something. She'd come in and blown up his life, yet it'd been no more deliberate an act than the air moving in and out of his lungs as he stood there in the middle of her fire, and he knew that but it still burned. "You should sit," he said in avoidance. "It's fresh pasta. It'll only take a couple of minutes."

"I don't care about the pasta, Rick. Is that what you think? That I came here to eat?"

He finally turned, found her closer than he expected. "Then why are you here? To tell me how nice it would be if we could be friends and keep in touch?" Tugging the dish towel from his shoulder, he threw it down onto the counter. "I don't want to be your fucking friend, Kate."

"Well, thank you for that," she replied acerbically and moved away before a swift return. "You know, you're not the only one who feels something here, Rick. I'm drowning in this, too, and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do about it. Do you think it's any easier being the one who's leaving?"

He looked into her emerald eyes wet with the sheen of tears they still clung to, and he closed his own. "How does anyone ever let you go?" he whispered to everyone and no one at all. "I've only had you for a few days and I already can't imagine any possible answer to that question."

Kate stepped into him, bunched the fabric hanging at his hips in her fists. "You've had me since the minute I first saw you, even with that ridiculous doughnut cream caked on your lip," she confessed before a pause. "And you think that because you haven't seen any of the bad stuff, any of the stuff that would make you want to."

"Bad stuff like being a complete asshole to someone you care about on the last day you have with her and then throwing a tantrum over something you can't control instead of telling her how incredible she looks wearing your shirt and then taking her to bed?" He stopped for a breath, glanced back at the stove. "And like burning dinner?"

She smiled softly, reached up and traced the line of his jaw with her finger. "Turn it off." When she backed away he complied, followed her into the bedroom. "Sit." He crossed to the foot of the bed, pushed aside the work clothes he'd tossed there, watched as the wet hair she freed from its binding tumbled down over her shoulders.

"Nothing could ever make me want to let you go," Rick pledged, welcoming her body between his thighs, contracting his muscles to keep hold while his fingers climbed her bare legs. "I want to see everything, Kate, all of you-good, bad, I don't care what." He inched the hem of the tee above her hips when he met it, seeking access to the nectar he craved, and he found no impediment.

"I told you. I didn't come here for food." He dipped into her, pressed his lips against her skin, and when his tongue found her, her pleasure flowed out in her words and he felt himself instantly harden. "I…I came here…for you," she professed breathless, and lowered herself onto his lap, worked the obstacles of his jeans in an effort to free him. "Can we be here instead of in tomorrow, Rick? Please?"

He responded with a searing kiss, one that consumed them both, one that carried them on to morning.

 **xxxx**

Kate lifted her head, pressed her lips to his chest in the early-morning light. "You look exhausted," she observed with an air of amusement, "and beautiful. Tell me what you're going to do today besides take a very well-earned nap."

He spoke as his thumb drew a lazy path along the exposed skin of her back. "The pleasure was mostly mine," he beamed. "And besides think about you, I need to get some work done. Shaw was still there when I left last night, and she wasn't too happy about it."

"Jordan thinks the world of you, Rick. She's proud to call you her partner. I hope you realize that."

Rick guffawed but quickly quieted. "I don't know, maybe. Can we talk about me thinking about you, instead? Wait, what time do you have to go?" Worried, he tried to angle for the clock, but couldn't get a look at it from his position.

"Relax, not for a little while. I'm not done with you, yet," she said, wrapping a leg around his.

He kissed the crown of her head, idled in the fragrance of her hair. "Don't ever be done with me," he murmured, intending not to be heard and failing at it. "Hey, since I ruined dinner, do you want me to make you some breakfast? You haven't eaten a thing. You're probably starving."

"I think I'm falling in love with you."

They were the most perfect words that'd ever been said to him, even with their admitted uncertainty, and he'd never lived a moment he wished more to commit to memory exactly as it was.

"You only _think_?" he teased, not that what she'd said had earned the whimsy, but he knew had he not taken that route, the chance he could've frightened her with his own admission was a terribly real one.

Kate tilted up again, set her chin on his ribs, waited until she'd had a moment to take him in before revealing herself. "No. I know. I've known, and I don't want this to be over, Rick. I want you."

He cupped her cheek in his hand. "I have never wanted anything more in my life than I want you, and if I have to fly to Los Angeles or Vancouver or Timbuktu every damn weekend, I'll do it, and I'll do it with the biggest, most grateful smile on my face." Something in her eyes then told him there was more. "What is it?"

"You were just in a relationship where you hardly saw each other. Look how that ended."

Rick rolled up onto his elbow and she fell back to the pillow. "No, Kate, I was in a relationship where we hardly made time to see each other, and that was just the tip of the iceberg of why it ended. You don't think I understand what your work means to you, the kind of pride you take in it? You moved here just to work with the NYPD, to make the experience more authentic. You didn't have to do that. Last I heard L.A. had a few guys in uniform hanging around."

"I know what your work means to you, too. I see how much you love it, how much you were meant to do it, and you and Jordan have so many amazing things left to accomplish together."

He rolled his eyes. "What, that slacker? Please." With his kiss, he felt the tickle of her giggle. "I don't want this to be over, Kate. I want you," he echoed, "and I don't have a fucking clue how or what or…how again, but I need to try. Try with me."

She reached up and curled her hand at the back of his neck. "If we do this, I hope you don't think it means I'm going to start eating doughnuts." As she encouraged him over her, he found home between her legs, stole a peek at the clock.

"How long do I have? I bet I can convince you."

"Oh, you know size doesn't matter, Chuckles," she said with a smirk.

"Suddenly everybody's a comedian," he groaned and pressed his mouth to hers.

 _ **XXX**_

 **To those who celebrate, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for each and every one of you.**

 **x**

 **KB**


End file.
